DR ONUR OYMEN’S CONTRIBUTIONS, NATO COLLEGE, ROME,
3 APRIL 2006
Dear Commander, Dear Participants,
It is a particular pleasure for me to visit NATO College once more to share with you my thoughts on one of the most important issues, Mediterranean Dialogue with a particular reference to the security and stability issues.
We must all agree that both NATO-Mediterranean Dialogue and EU Barcelona process are two important initiatives aiming at the establishment of a better understanding and mutual confidence among Western nations and Southern Mediterranean and Middle eastern countries.
All efforts and initiatives taken in this regard, particularly the İstanbul Cooperation Initiative, were positive steps taken in the right direction. And the fact that these processes both within the framework of NATO and EU are continuing should be regarded as a positive signal. A number of meetings have been organized and concrete steps have been taken. For instance at the Prague summit, the Mediterranean Dialogue’s political and practical dimensions were increased. At the İstanbul summit, the Dialogue countries have decided to move towards a genuine partnership.
But to be realistic, we have to refrain from making overoptimistic assessments since most of the problems in these areas remain on our agenda.
Unfortunately we are not today in a position to say that risks to the stability and the security in the region like terrorism, Mass destruction weapons, political and religious radicalism and demographic pressures are mostly unchecked. In some areas, we must admit that we are facing even worse problems.
Starting with the political environment, one of the best achievements we could expect in the area was the expansion of democracy and human rights. Since no war took place among democratic countries, a real democratization would be in a sense an insurance policy against wars and other military confrontations.
Although there was some limited progress in the field of democratization of the area, the reality is that no full-fledged democracy has emerged in the region in the last decade. We must however appreciate that some efforts have been made in this area in countries like Iraq and Palestine. But to be honest, the results of that could not be considered as fully satisfactory.
Although Iraq is not a party to Mediterranean Dialogue neither to the Barcelona process of EU, the situation and developments in that country will affect the entire region and beyond.
Imagine that the elections in Iraq took place on 15 December 2005 but the vote counting could be finalized and made public only 55 days later, on 10th February 2006. This is a too long period by all democratic standards.
One hundred days passed since the elections, no compromise for the establishment of a government has emerged. When we look closely to the new Iraqi Constitution, we observe that religious nature of this Constitution is obvious. IT is clearly said that no law, which is not compatible with the Islamic principles, could be adopted. In reality, in a Muslim society if you do not accept the principle of secularism, as is the case of Turkey, you cannot establish a real democratic society.
Our American friends were expecting after the elections the stability would prevail in Iraq. But unfortunately just the opposite happened. Now everybody is talking about the danger of a civil war. The terrorist groups deployed to northern Iraq continue to operate across the border. And no security force has undertaken any action against these terrorists. Probably it is a unique case in the world where terrorists are operating from a safe heaven, despite the fact that leading NATO nations have considerable military presence and political responsibility.
The situation in the Palestine is not more promising. Palestine together with Israel is participating to the Barcelona process; therefore we should have a closer look to the situation in that region. We all welcomed the fact that Palestinians have organized free and fair elections. But, the election results do not lead us unfortunately to optimistic assessments. HAMAS has emerged as a winner from these elections and was able to form the new Palestinian government. But unfortunately this group or Party has not changed its policy of violence, non-recognition of Israel and refusal of dialogue with Israel for a peaceful solution.
The invitation of the Turkish and Russian government of HAMAS leaders hoping to persuade them to change their basic policies have not proved any tangible result. At this moment, HAMAS continue to be present in the list of terrorist organizations adopted by the European Union on the 29th of November last year. And the EU Presidency has declared on the 6th of February, that Candidate countries have also formerly have accepted this list of terrorist organizations.
We should also not forget that HAMAS is an extreme religious organization aiming to establish an Islamic state in Palestine. It would not obviously help us to spread secular values in the region.
In short, in the eastern shores of Mediterranean and in the Middle East in general we don’t have a promising situation regarding the terrorist threats.
The proliferation of mass destruction weapons continue to be a matter of concern for all of us. We believe that all NATO countries should put forward a principal policy in this regard and continue to pursue this policy without any discrimination. We should have a firm stand against all countries, which are aiming to develop these weapons and delivery vehicles besides the permanent Members of the UN Security Council.
In case we single out one of the countries and turn a blind eye to the others, many nations will misinterpret our principal policies in this regard and may feel themselves free to make their own weapons. Hoping that one day they also may be somehow excused or overlooked.
On the positive side of the coin, we notice a positive and responsible attitude and readiness to cooperate among most of the southern Mediterranean countries. We particularly notice a visible change in the policies of Libya. We believe that we have to continue our dialogue and cooperation with all these countries, and spread every effort to create a climate of full confidence between Western European countries and southern Mediterranean nations.
Another yardstick regarding to the improvement of climate confidence would be the defense expenditures. As a matter of fact, in northern Mediterranean countries and European nations in general there was a sharp decrease in military expenditures after the end of the Cold war, which enabled European countries to shift some financial resources from defense to social welfare, education and health. Whereas in southern Mediterranean, we notice a reverse trend. In some southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries, there is even an increase in military expenditures. For example the military expenditures of Israel is 9.1 % of her Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Jordan’s figure is very close to that: 8.9 %. Syria’s military expenditures rise to 7.1%. These figures are more than triple of the average of European NATO countries. Other countries of the region like Libya and Algeria have spent in last three decades most of their oil money for defense purchases as well.
What is the reason of this phenomenon? A reasonable explanation would be the lack of confidence among these countries. Again, lack of democracy, lack of free press, lack of transparency might be the reasons of this lack of confidence. NATO and the European Union could be instrumental in creating a general feeling of confidence not only between the north and the south of the Mediterranean, but also among all countries of the region.
Unfortunately these countries are spending important financial resources for defense sparing the money from their most important infrastructure and other investment projects, Health and education. This situation may negatively influence the absorption capability of these countries of their ever increasing population.
In the South, there is a rapid increase of the population. If we also consider the increase of population of the southern neighbors of Mediterranean countries like Nigeria or Ethiopia, we will notice an immense population pressure. As a mater of fact the population of North Africa from Egypt to Mauritania which was 90 million in 1980 reached 153 million at the end of the last century. It is expected that this figure will be as high as 241 million by the end of the first quarter of the 21st century.
The population increase in these countries may constitute a real threat to the overall balance between North Africa and Europe. Illegal migration is even today a big problem in some European countries like Italy. We can perhaps better use the money spent within the framework of Barcelona process to projects aiming the creation of employment as a matter of priority.
We can perhaps reshape our foreign trade policies enabling the products of these countries particularly manufactured by neighboring intensive industries a better access to our markets.
Perhaps, the most important dimension of our cooperation with southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries is the psychological aspect. We should not forget that all nations of the world are proud people. We should be careful in hurting their believes or national feelings. Any disregard to their basic values may create very strong and sometimes damaging reactions. The cartoon crisis was a casing point. A totally unnecessary and unexpected crisis has emerged from a careless initiative of some journalists. Although later they expressed some regret, the damage was done. We sincerely believe that in a period where a growing sensitivity about the Western nations on Islamic terrorism, we should all refrain from providing arguments or excuses to radical groups in the Muslim societies.
I must confess that this problem could have been ended in a more smooth way, caring the religious feelings of the Muslim people throughout the world. As a matter of fact, blasphemy is a punishable act according to sections 140 and 266 of the Danish Penal code. The good thing is that the Danish legislation prohibits insult to all religious without any exception. In case this issue had been presented to the Danish courts, probably the reactions of the world could be smoother. But unfortunately this article of the Danish penal code has not been used since 1938.
What is worst is that in some European countries blasphemy has been interpreted only as acts insulting the Christian religion, which means that no legal action could be taken against insults of non-Christian religions. This is hardly compatible with European values and with the standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights which prohibit any discrimination among people of different religious culture or ethnic background.
Unfortunately the damage is done. And it has created a bitter feeling among Muslim nations of the region and of the world against not only one single European country, but also Western nations as such, since as a sign of solidarity various newspapers had reprinted these cartoons insulting Prophet Mohammed.
We are all committed to our common values like the freedom of expression. But this should not prevent us from caring the feelings of other people, particularly in a period where we want to eliminate the risks of clashes among civilizations. A coordinated European approach and the unification of European legislation in this area would be extremely helpful in regaining the confidence of our Mediterranean and Muslim partners in general.
Furthermore, we believe that we have to highlight in our dialogue and cooperation with the Mediterranean countries, what we have in common with these people, and not the elements that are separating us. This is also true while we are working to build the Europe of tomorrow. We should avoid any attempt to insert in the new European Constitution the Christian values as a common denominator for all. We regret that recently there are new attempts among some Conservative European Parties to build European family on the basis of Christian religion.
In all these areas, we have to coordinate the efforts spent by NATO and European Union. Although our Mediterranean Partners are not always the same countries, we should implement complementary policies and may be to proceed to better division of labour. While EU is focusing on funding economic and social projects, environment, education and health, NATO may concentrate its efforts on defense-related matters, training of forces, civilian-military cooperation and disaster relief. In areas like crisis management, NATO and EU may develop joint projects.
For all these matters, NATO and EU should intensify their cooperation. Unfortunately until a few years ago, there was practically no cooperation between these two most important institutions having their retroactives in the same European capital with a few hundred meters between each other. We are happy to notice that recently there is growing awareness in both NATO and EU on the necessity to increase their consultations and cooperation. But still I must confess that we have a long way to go. Particularly on combating terrorism, we should further deepen our cooperation and create concrete mechanisms of mutual assistance not only among the members of these organizations, but also among the Candidate countries to EU and our Mediterranean Partners. More we produce concrete results in this field, more we will spread confidence in all these areas.
I would conclude my remarks by stressing once more the importance of spreading democracy to the region. Democracy is our most valuable export item. European and North American nations were extremely successful in helping local groups working for the establishment of democratic governments in their own countries. We had remarkable results in eastern Europe, in Latin America, in the Far east, even in the black Africa. The notorious exception in this regard is unfortunately Middle East and North Africa. Having special historical and cultural tiers with this region, I believe that Turkey can play a positive role as a spring board of democracy towards these regions. We are the only country which is at the same time member of NATO and Islamic Conference. With a Muslim population but a secular Constitution, We are the only NATO country neighboring the Middle East. And we are fully committed to European values. Therefore, I believe that our assets and experience should be fully used together with the assets and experience of the other NATO and EU countries.
In case we act in this direction I’m confident that we can turn the actual gray picture to a more promising and optimistic one.
Thank you very much for your attention.
NATO Koleji – NATO’s initiatives in the Mediterranean and Gulf Region (İng.)
DR ONUR OYMEN’S CONTRIBUTIONS, NATO COLLEGE, ROME,
3 APRIL 2006
Dear Commander, Dear Participants,
It is a particular pleasure for me to visit NATO College once more to share with you my thoughts on one of the most important issues, Mediterranean Dialogue with a particular reference to the security and stability issues.
We must all agree that both NATO-Mediterranean Dialogue and EU Barcelona process are two important initiatives aiming at the establishment of a better understanding and mutual confidence among Western nations and Southern Mediterranean and Middle eastern countries.
All efforts and initiatives taken in this regard, particularly the İstanbul Cooperation Initiative, were positive steps taken in the right direction. And the fact that these processes both within the framework of NATO and EU are continuing should be regarded as a positive signal. A number of meetings have been organized and concrete steps have been taken. For instance at the Prague summit, the Mediterranean Dialogue’s political and practical dimensions were increased. At the İstanbul summit, the Dialogue countries have decided to move towards a genuine partnership.
But to be realistic, we have to refrain from making overoptimistic assessments since most of the problems in these areas remain on our agenda.
Unfortunately we are not today in a position to say that risks to the stability and the security in the region like terrorism, Mass destruction weapons, political and religious radicalism and demographic pressures are mostly unchecked. In some areas, we must admit that we are facing even worse problems.
Starting with the political environment, one of the best achievements we could expect in the area was the expansion of democracy and human rights. Since no war took place among democratic countries, a real democratization would be in a sense an insurance policy against wars and other military confrontations.
Although there was some limited progress in the field of democratization of the area, the reality is that no full-fledged democracy has emerged in the region in the last decade. We must however appreciate that some efforts have been made in this area in countries like Iraq and Palestine. But to be honest, the results of that could not be considered as fully satisfactory.
Although Iraq is not a party to Mediterranean Dialogue neither to the Barcelona process of EU, the situation and developments in that country will affect the entire region and beyond.
Imagine that the elections in Iraq took place on 15 December 2005 but the vote counting could be finalized and made public only 55 days later, on 10th February 2006. This is a too long period by all democratic standards.
One hundred days passed since the elections, no compromise for the establishment of a government has emerged. When we look closely to the new Iraqi Constitution, we observe that religious nature of this Constitution is obvious. IT is clearly said that no law, which is not compatible with the Islamic principles, could be adopted. In reality, in a Muslim society if you do not accept the principle of secularism, as is the case of Turkey, you cannot establish a real democratic society.
Our American friends were expecting after the elections the stability would prevail in Iraq. But unfortunately just the opposite happened. Now everybody is talking about the danger of a civil war. The terrorist groups deployed to northern Iraq continue to operate across the border. And no security force has undertaken any action against these terrorists. Probably it is a unique case in the world where terrorists are operating from a safe heaven, despite the fact that leading NATO nations have considerable military presence and political responsibility.
The situation in the Palestine is not more promising. Palestine together with Israel is participating to the Barcelona process; therefore we should have a closer look to the situation in that region. We all welcomed the fact that Palestinians have organized free and fair elections. But, the election results do not lead us unfortunately to optimistic assessments. HAMAS has emerged as a winner from these elections and was able to form the new Palestinian government. But unfortunately this group or Party has not changed its policy of violence, non-recognition of Israel and refusal of dialogue with Israel for a peaceful solution.
The invitation of the Turkish and Russian government of HAMAS leaders hoping to persuade them to change their basic policies have not proved any tangible result. At this moment, HAMAS continue to be present in the list of terrorist organizations adopted by the European Union on the 29th of November last year. And the EU Presidency has declared on the 6th of February, that Candidate countries have also formerly have accepted this list of terrorist organizations.
We should also not forget that HAMAS is an extreme religious organization aiming to establish an Islamic state in Palestine. It would not obviously help us to spread secular values in the region.
In short, in the eastern shores of Mediterranean and in the Middle East in general we don’t have a promising situation regarding the terrorist threats.
The proliferation of mass destruction weapons continue to be a matter of concern for all of us. We believe that all NATO countries should put forward a principal policy in this regard and continue to pursue this policy without any discrimination. We should have a firm stand against all countries, which are aiming to develop these weapons and delivery vehicles besides the permanent Members of the UN Security Council.
In case we single out one of the countries and turn a blind eye to the others, many nations will misinterpret our principal policies in this regard and may feel themselves free to make their own weapons. Hoping that one day they also may be somehow excused or overlooked.
On the positive side of the coin, we notice a positive and responsible attitude and readiness to cooperate among most of the southern Mediterranean countries. We particularly notice a visible change in the policies of Libya. We believe that we have to continue our dialogue and cooperation with all these countries, and spread every effort to create a climate of full confidence between Western European countries and southern Mediterranean nations.
Another yardstick regarding to the improvement of climate confidence would be the defense expenditures. As a matter of fact, in northern Mediterranean countries and European nations in general there was a sharp decrease in military expenditures after the end of the Cold war, which enabled European countries to shift some financial resources from defense to social welfare, education and health. Whereas in southern Mediterranean, we notice a reverse trend. In some southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries, there is even an increase in military expenditures. For example the military expenditures of Israel is 9.1 % of her Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Jordan’s figure is very close to that: 8.9 %. Syria’s military expenditures rise to 7.1%. These figures are more than triple of the average of European NATO countries. Other countries of the region like Libya and Algeria have spent in last three decades most of their oil money for defense purchases as well.
What is the reason of this phenomenon? A reasonable explanation would be the lack of confidence among these countries. Again, lack of democracy, lack of free press, lack of transparency might be the reasons of this lack of confidence. NATO and the European Union could be instrumental in creating a general feeling of confidence not only between the north and the south of the Mediterranean, but also among all countries of the region.
Unfortunately these countries are spending important financial resources for defense sparing the money from their most important infrastructure and other investment projects, Health and education. This situation may negatively influence the absorption capability of these countries of their ever increasing population.
In the South, there is a rapid increase of the population. If we also consider the increase of population of the southern neighbors of Mediterranean countries like Nigeria or Ethiopia, we will notice an immense population pressure. As a mater of fact the population of North Africa from Egypt to Mauritania which was 90 million in 1980 reached 153 million at the end of the last century. It is expected that this figure will be as high as 241 million by the end of the first quarter of the 21st century.
The population increase in these countries may constitute a real threat to the overall balance between North Africa and Europe. Illegal migration is even today a big problem in some European countries like Italy. We can perhaps better use the money spent within the framework of Barcelona process to projects aiming the creation of employment as a matter of priority.
We can perhaps reshape our foreign trade policies enabling the products of these countries particularly manufactured by neighboring intensive industries a better access to our markets.
Perhaps, the most important dimension of our cooperation with southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries is the psychological aspect. We should not forget that all nations of the world are proud people. We should be careful in hurting their believes or national feelings. Any disregard to their basic values may create very strong and sometimes damaging reactions. The cartoon crisis was a casing point. A totally unnecessary and unexpected crisis has emerged from a careless initiative of some journalists. Although later they expressed some regret, the damage was done. We sincerely believe that in a period where a growing sensitivity about the Western nations on Islamic terrorism, we should all refrain from providing arguments or excuses to radical groups in the Muslim societies.
I must confess that this problem could have been ended in a more smooth way, caring the religious feelings of the Muslim people throughout the world. As a matter of fact, blasphemy is a punishable act according to sections 140 and 266 of the Danish Penal code. The good thing is that the Danish legislation prohibits insult to all religious without any exception. In case this issue had been presented to the Danish courts, probably the reactions of the world could be smoother. But unfortunately this article of the Danish penal code has not been used since 1938.
What is worst is that in some European countries blasphemy has been interpreted only as acts insulting the Christian religion, which means that no legal action could be taken against insults of non-Christian religions. This is hardly compatible with European values and with the standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights which prohibit any discrimination among people of different religious culture or ethnic background.
Unfortunately the damage is done. And it has created a bitter feeling among Muslim nations of the region and of the world against not only one single European country, but also Western nations as such, since as a sign of solidarity various newspapers had reprinted these cartoons insulting Prophet Mohammed.
We are all committed to our common values like the freedom of expression. But this should not prevent us from caring the feelings of other people, particularly in a period where we want to eliminate the risks of clashes among civilizations. A coordinated European approach and the unification of European legislation in this area would be extremely helpful in regaining the confidence of our Mediterranean and Muslim partners in general.
Furthermore, we believe that we have to highlight in our dialogue and cooperation with the Mediterranean countries, what we have in common with these people, and not the elements that are separating us. This is also true while we are working to build the Europe of tomorrow. We should avoid any attempt to insert in the new European Constitution the Christian values as a common denominator for all. We regret that recently there are new attempts among some Conservative European Parties to build European family on the basis of Christian religion.
In all these areas, we have to coordinate the efforts spent by NATO and European Union. Although our Mediterranean Partners are not always the same countries, we should implement complementary policies and may be to proceed to better division of labour. While EU is focusing on funding economic and social projects, environment, education and health, NATO may concentrate its efforts on defense-related matters, training of forces, civilian-military cooperation and disaster relief. In areas like crisis management, NATO and EU may develop joint projects.
For all these matters, NATO and EU should intensify their cooperation. Unfortunately until a few years ago, there was practically no cooperation between these two most important institutions having their retroactives in the same European capital with a few hundred meters between each other. We are happy to notice that recently there is growing awareness in both NATO and EU on the necessity to increase their consultations and cooperation. But still I must confess that we have a long way to go. Particularly on combating terrorism, we should further deepen our cooperation and create concrete mechanisms of mutual assistance not only among the members of these organizations, but also among the Candidate countries to EU and our Mediterranean Partners. More we produce concrete results in this field, more we will spread confidence in all these areas.
I would conclude my remarks by stressing once more the importance of spreading democracy to the region. Democracy is our most valuable export item. European and North American nations were extremely successful in helping local groups working for the establishment of democratic governments in their own countries. We had remarkable results in eastern Europe, in Latin America, in the Far east, even in the black Africa. The notorious exception in this regard is unfortunately Middle East and North Africa. Having special historical and cultural tiers with this region, I believe that Turkey can play a positive role as a spring board of democracy towards these regions. We are the only country which is at the same time member of NATO and Islamic Conference. With a Muslim population but a secular Constitution, We are the only NATO country neighboring the Middle East. And we are fully committed to European values. Therefore, I believe that our assets and experience should be fully used together with the assets and experience of the other NATO and EU countries.
In case we act in this direction I’m confident that we can turn the actual gray picture to a more promising and optimistic one.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Bu belge Konferanslar, Konuşmalar arşivinde bulunmaktadır.