Winning The War Against Terrorism – Next Steps (İng.)

THE NEW ATLANTIC INITIATIVE

PARTICIPANTS:
IAIN DUNCAN SMITH, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION, UNITED KINGDOM
EFFI EITAM (FEIN), BRIGADIER GENERAL, RESERVE, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES
ONUR OYMEN, TURKISH AMBASSADOR TO NATO
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JANE HARMAN, D-CA.

American Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.
Friday, November 30, 2001
9:00 AM

AMB. OYMEN: Thank you, very much.  Anyway, since the Foreign Ministry is always short of money – (laughter) – in a sense you are not wrong by mixing those two ministries.

Well, Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, it’s a real honor and pleasure for me to be able to be with you today and to share with you some thoughts on this terrible issue of these times.

On the 11th of September, we were in a NATO informal luncheon with NATO ambassadors and the secretary general.  All of a sudden, we got the news of this horrible attack against American targets in New York and Washington.  An immediate shock, an immediate reaction has emerged, but perhaps more important, an immediate sense of solidarity has emerged.

We were discussing terrorism issues at NATO for many years, and we have produced a few papers on terrorism, and they were presenting terrorism as a new social threat.  But that day we realized how important it is to act — to react together against terrorism.  No wonder the same evening we took our first NATO decision condemning these attacks and also expressing our determination to consolidate our efforts to express our solidarity and cooperation.

In the last couple of years, Turkey was in the forefront in arguing in NATO that we should intensify – further intensify our efforts in combating terrorism.  So, if you saw some references in NATO documents, NATO resolutions on terrorism or reference to terrorism in NATO papers, you should be sure that Turkey had always its fingerprints.  But what happened in America has completely changed our minds, because many allies were thinking until that moment that probably terrorism was not the main issue we have to discuss in NATO.  There are other organizations responsible.  After all, NATO has several mechanisms for consultations.  But what happened?  The following day, on the 12th of September, we took the decision of the Article V, which means that we all considered that these attacks are attacks addressed not only against the United States, but against all our countries.

So, this is the first implementation of the Article V decision or the Washington Treaty in the last half a century, and it happened on terrorism on which many allies were reluctant to discuss as NATO business.  Since then, in every meeting of the NATO Council, terrorism and the attacks against American targets, is the number one item.  It’s more important than Macedonian, more important than Kosovo, more important than everything.

So, in a sense, it was an eye-opener.  And I can tell you – I’ll come back a little on the night that I mentioned – but I’ll tell you that no other country can better understand your feelings, you reaction, and your sense of revolution against these attacks, because these attacks, with a very high number of victims, made America number two country among NATO countries as regards to the casualties of terrorism, number one being Turkey.  So we have lost more human beings, we have lost more victims, more innocent people than America in the last two decades.  But it happened in a longer time.  And while it happened there was no live television coverage.  Therefore, there was little attention in the world public, but the number of Turkish women and children and babies and teachers and religious leaders, and so and so forth, is much higher than the victims of the 11th of September.

Therefore, I can tell you, and I repeat to you, that no one else probably can understand your feelings as good as the Turkish people.  But being here, I don’t want to use an excessive diplomatic language.  I believe that in a friendly environment, it is our duty to be frank with you.  I must tell you that throughout these years where we were suffering from terrorism, we have not seen the same understanding that you have seen for America, we have not seen the same support, we have not seen the same solidarity.  On the contrary, in some circles in friendly countries, people taught that, well, if we had terrorist attacks, probably we did something wrong; probably it’s our fault.  So, perhaps we had some shortcomings, and those people who killed innocent civilians might have some justification.  So, if you want to stop terrorism we have to correct our mistakes.  It’s up to us to stop terrorism, not up to terrorists to stop their methods.

So, this was the mentality.  You will not believe that many groups have been established in Western Europe to support these terrorists.  There were a lot of articles in the Western press saying that Turkey was wrong here, Turkey was wrong there.  So they criticized our methods combating terrorism, but very little criticism to terrorists.  We had some people going all the way to some Middle Eastern countries, where the terrorist groups had their base, to meet the terrorist leaders, to look how they can understand their cause, how they can appease these terrorists.

This was our story, ladies and gentleman, and now we hope that things will change.  We will reset our minds and there will be a new mentality, a new frame of mind in our efforts to fight terrorism.  And therefore, we are very much in favor with your policy of globalization of combat against terrorism, and a sustained coalition, a sustained fight against terrorism all over the world.  And we also believe, with you, that there is no gray area, there is no – you say that you are either with Americans or with terrorists, there’s no gray area, you cannot have a half-hearted support.  It’s exactly what we say.  It’s exactly what we were saying until now.  There is no good terrorist, bad terrorist.  But I must confess to you that in some official meetings, I heard references to “soft terrorism,” like soft drinks, like soft murderers.  If you kill people you are a murderer.  You cannot say that I’m a murderer but I’m a soft murderer, like a soft drink, or “decaf terrorists.”  So, there’s no such a thing.  So, we must all agree that terrorists are terrorists without any qualification.

Finally, in NATO we came to the conclusion that we should condemn terrorism without any qualification.  In NATO documents you will not see a qualification – an adjective before terrorism.  There is no such thing like international terrorist, there is no such a thing like Islamic terrorist, there is no such thing like ethnic terrorism.  Terrorism is terrorism, and this is our common understanding in NATO, at least now.  So, we have, we believe, to intensify our efforts and to find ways and means of effectively, intensely combating this terrorism without tolerance.  Our motto should be, zero tolerance to terrorists.

Where are we now?  Do we have enough lessons from these attacks of 11th of September?  Are we meaning what we say when we say that we are fighting now terrorism without discrimination, without restriction, without qualification?  Are we there?  My answer, my frank answer would be, not yet.

Our American friends have published a few lists of terrorist organizations, and they registered some of them to the United Nations.  The first two lists contain the names of terrorist organizations directly linked to al Qaeda.  But in the third they kindly put also terrorist organizations that are not directly linked to al Qaeda, and we are very, very thankful to our American friends for doing so, and we hope that very soon they are going to register also this third list in the United Nations to set an example for the rest of the world.

The European Union, another important organization, also started to take some actions, which is good.  They fixed 37 new measures to be implemented against terrorism.  That’s also good.  But I must confess that we are not in a position to say at this moment that all measures taken by the European Union are meeting our requirements at this moment.  To start with, the list of terrorist organizations – the third list of the American government does not have yet a mirror in the European Union.  We have not seen a similar list at this moment from the European Union.

Second, they have kindly established a joint committee with the United States.  That’s good; a very positive signal.  At the same moment, we — as Turkey we proposed to establishing a special ad hoc committee between NATO and the European Union to combat terrorism, to coordinate our efforts.  We are still awaiting a positive answer.  We still are not able to establish this committee.  Why not?  Well, it’s a question but I don’t have the answer.

Furthermore, you have arrested a number of suspected terrorists of different categories in America.  We hope that in Europe also they will do the same, but so far most terrorists operating against Turkey have not been arrested, repatriated, or tried or punished to the level – to the extent that we wish.  Therefore, we hope — we expect that our European colleagues will also take appropriate measures.

To conclude I would like to say that to the best of my knowledge, with due respect to Israel’s General Eitam, Turkey’s a secular country, and secularism is one of the articles of our constitution that cannot be changed.  And it is one of the biggest achievements of Ataturk.  It doesn’t mean that an overwhelming majority of our population is not Muslim.  They are Muslims.  But to say the truth, that we don’t want to mix religion with the states of the government, therefore we are a secular country.  Our people is a Muslim people, but we are of the opinion that terrorism has no religion.  Terrorism has no ideology.  Terrorism has no ethnic origin.  Terrorism is terrorism.  And are we going to call ETA terrorists as Christian terrorists, IRA terrorists as Christian terrorists?  They are not.  So, terrorism has no religion, no ideology and no ethnic background.

Last word.  As the United States, you have done so much for us — for Turkey, for NATO, for other countries in several fields, including in combating terrorism.  Now it’s our turn to help you, and you can count on us.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

AMB. OYMEN:  Well, thank you very much indeed.  It was a very pertinent question, and I thank you for that.

If you ask Professor Huntington, he will tell you that democracy and Christianity go hand-by-hand, so there’s no chance in the Islamic world to see democratic governments.  So we proved the contrary in Turkey.  Turkey, with an overwhelming majority of the people being Muslim, we are a democratic society.  We have established our multi-party democracy more than half a century ago.  And we are also a liberal economy.

Therefore, I believe that the case of Turkey demonstrates that Muslim countries or countries with Muslim populations can well be a democratic country and market economy.  In America, while referring to Turkey, you are referring most of the time to our strategic importance, strategic location, geographic position.  You refer less to our democratic values.  And I believe that Turkey can well be used as a springboard of democracy towards the region.

Do we have examples?  Yes.  In the early ‘30s, the then-king of Afghanistan, precisely Amanullah Khan, came to visit Ataturk, and said that we want to establish in Afghanistan a modern society, using Turkish model.  Can you help us?  We said yes.  And Ataturk has sent hundreds of teachers, professors, doctors, and we have opened schools, and we started to modernize the society.  And we have a long tradition.  We gave hundreds, thousands of scholarships, and they started to become a modern society.  But you know what happened afterwards.  So, we cannot say that the Afghan population, by definition, is condemned to be a non-democratic country.  They started already in the 1930’s with modern dressing and everything.  The second example being Iran.  The father of the shah came, again, to Ataturk and asked exactly the same question, and Ataturk suggested to him to start with democracy.  “How can I make Iran a modern society?”  Ataturk said, “You have to start with democracy.”  Therefore, I believe that the spread of democracy in the region will be a big achievement for all of us.  And we are there to set an example for this spread of democracy.
There was a very pertinent question a moment ago by the representative of Financial Times, I believe to Senator Hagel, about democracy.  And he said that even in America eight years ago we were not a perfect democracy, which is true; which is true that you cannot expect overnight to turn into Switzerland in the Middle East, but you should not forget that all over in the world, democracy progresses.  There are comparative studies saying that in Latin America, in Africa, in the Far East, democracy is progressing, with one exception, the Middle East.  Why?
So this question I believe we all, including yourselves, should ask to ourselves.  So why is there little progress in democracy?  We should come to the conclusion that we don’t need only good friends in this part of the world, but we also need countries not having authoritarian aspirations or authoritarian regimes.  It is in our interests.  And those things are not incompatible.  So democracy and friendship are not incompatible.  This is our message.  It’s a matter that we have to reflect upon together with you.

AMB. OYMEN:  Thank you very much.
As General Eitam, I don’t believe that poverty is the main reason of terrorism.  To tell you the truth, terrorism developed in many places among the richest portions of the society.  Take Spain, for instance.  Modern Spain is one of the richest part — the Basque region is one of the richest parts of Spain, but the Basques have a great, substantial terrorist action.
In Northern Ireland, we cannot say that Northern Ireland is a poor country.  In Turkey, terrorism has started in 1975 by Armenian terrorism.  The Armenians are not among the poor people.  Therefore, I don’t believe that there’s a correlation between poverty and terrorism.  But it is true that if a country there is a high level of poverty or unemployment, these terrorist organizations may recruit their members from this environment.  This is true.
For that matter, we have to have these countries to develop economically and not to permit environments that provide food for terrorist organizations.  More important probably is the democratic experience.  Why terrorist organizations in Turkey were not successful and are dying?  The terrorist actions, in general, in Turkey are dying, and today practically there is no terrorism or very little terrorism.  Why?  Because the Turkish people had a democratic experience, and they had the choice between democracy and a regime proposed by terrorism.  And no people choose terrorism or terrorist regimes to replace democracy.  Democracy you have hopes.  You have hopes for development.  You have hopes for prosperity.  You have hopes for a good, better future.

Is there a similarity between PKK and PLO?  I regret, but I cannot find any.  What you may think about PLO I will not argue at this moment.  General Eitam, we have different opinions.  But any way, I don’t remember a case where PLO has killed innocent Palestinian babies for their political purposes, innocent Palestinian women and children.  I don’t believe that PKK is not an organization more terrible than any other organization.  Most of the victims of terror in Turkey are of Kurdish origin.  They killed Kurdish people because those Kurds were not in favor or terrorism and not supporting terrorist organizations.  They were in favor of democracy.   That’s why they killed those Kurds who are not supporting terrorism.
A last word, if I may.  I believe that while talking about fighting terrorism and democracy, we should be consistent with ourselves.  We should not say that what’s good for me is not good for other friendly and allied countries.  We completely understand. We totally understand you, and you need stronger measures to combat terrorism, as has been discussed this morning.  We try them in military courts.  I do not argue it.  It’s your decision.  It’s your problem.  But I’ll give you our case, and you’ll understand how we are suffering in international relations for the same reason.
For instance, we were attacked.  We were criticized.  Why?  Because we were trying terrorists in a national security court where there are three judges, one being military.  They say that it’s anti-democratic.  It’s against human rights.  You are violating human rights.  Who are telling this?  It was not only some circles, human rights organizations, even some governments, but also the European Court of Justice.  So they condemn Turkey on several occasions in connection with the terrorist victims or terrorist — I mean suspects, because they were judged in courts where there was one single military judge.  So they forced us to change our constitution, our laws, and we withdrew our military judge, although it was not affecting at all the value of the judgments.
I believe that not only in assessing terrorism, but also in assessing the methods of combat.  Now we are talking in the United Kingdom about preventive detention, for instance.  In Turkey, when we detain people for more than four days, or, in extreme cases, seven days, we are harshly criticized.  They said that you are violating European Convention of Human Rights, and this and that.  You see, now when you face the problem, when you face the danger, you understand that nothing is more important than the security of your citizens.  And you’re right.  So I’m not arguing.  I’m not arguing in favor of less democratic methods.  Of course we have to further deepen our democracies and human rights, and so on and so forth.  But we should have one standard in combating terrorism.  There’s not a standard good for some other countries, but not so good for other countries combating equally with terrorism.
Therefore, it is time to coordinate our efforts and to come together, to fight together, without giving any justification, no poverty.  Poverty is not the justification.  Religion is not a justification.  As I said a moment ago, we should agree on one thing.  That should be no justification under any condition for any terrorist action, irrespective of their perpetrators’ objectives or methods.  So this is our motto.
Thank you very much.