AEGEE Tarafından Düzenlenen Diplomasi Semineri (İng.)

THE INTERVENTION OF MR. ONUR ÖYMEN, THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF CHP, TO DIPLOMACY SEMINAR ORGANIZED BY AEGEE – 3 SEPTEMBER 2007

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to Turkey, I appreciate that you have chosen such an important topic as s subject of your seminar. I would like to share some views with you on the subject of diplomatic concept.

Turkey is a country that is well placed in diplomacy and international relations thanks to her 700 years of experience in this field. Our strategic location made imperative the conduct of very careful and balanced relations in the international domain.

Our understanding of diplomacy is somehow different from the common way of understanding the concept in Europe. In 1856 the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston said that ‘Britain has no eternal friends or enemies; but permanent interests.’ It is true that national interest is the main concern in formulating and conducting foreign policy. But an excessive search of interest in diplomacy may do more harm than good because other countries may try to impose on you their own national interests as well and you will find yourself in permanent conflict with others. Our understanding in Turkish foreign policy is rather to seek basic common values with other countries, particularly with those with whom we share common values. The motto concept of Turkish foreign policy is ”Peace at Home Peace Abroad”. These words pronounced by Atatürk shortly after the foundation of our republic have served as a guiding principle of our Foreign Policy in the last 80 years. Accordingly we have always conducted a policy of peace with our neighbors and with other countries of the world. We have never claimed territories from other countries but we have always expressed our readiness to defend our national borders and sovereignty. For that matter we have strengthened our armed forces to be able to deter possible aggressors in the strategically very important part of the world. Thank to this strategy we are today the only country in this region who lived in peace since 1922. Among European countries only 3 nations lived for such a lo0ng period without entering a war.

Shortly after the Second World War, we joined the Western institutions, like the Council of Europe in 1949, NATO in 1952 and OECD in 1960. We signed an Association Agreement with the EC in 1963 that foresees the full membership of Turkey to the club. The basic principle of all these moves was to seek common interest on the basis of common values that we share with other members of these organizations like democracy, fundamental freedoms, human rights and market economy. As a matter of fact, the most important denominator of these organizations was to serve the common interests and joint aspirations of the member states.

I will give you some concrete examples. We, as NATO countries, had common interest to stop Serbian aggression in Bosnia and Kosovo. In all these cases, we conducted, as NATO, joint operations that helped at the end to the establishment of peace and stability in the Balkans. In preventing terrorism and internal troubles in Macedonia, all member states operated together. In Afghanistan, it was also the case and we joined efforts for our common goals in the direction of the establishment of a peaceful environment.

But it happens that even in the same Alliance, countries may not share the same opinion or policies. For example, in the American intervention to Iraq, some NATO countries followed America’s policy and participated to the intervention together with American troops, others criticized American intervention and refrained from participating to it. Such an operation conducted only some of the allied countries and other nations non-member of NATO is called “Coalition of the willing”, which means that such operations is conducted with the efforts of the countries that share the same views and that are ready to operate together. Why Turkey has not participated to the American operation in Iraq? Because our constitution says that we can send troops abroad or receive foreign troops in case of ınternational legitimity. That is to say a UN Security Council Mandate was necessary and the Americans were not able to have such a mandate.  Legally speaking, according to the article 51 of UN Charter, a country can use force only when she is attacked by others. Whereas the new American strategic doctrine allows America to intervene in case the governments feels an imminent threat from a third country even no attack takes place.

As regards to international economic cooperation the countries sharing the same views and economic concepts participate in international economic organizations established to defend their common policies and interests. For example OECD is an organization defending some economic values and principles like market economy and free trade. Those who share opposite values in the past formed COMECON under the leadership of the Soviet Union, but this organization has been disappeared after the Soviet Union dissolved.

In reality conflicting interests lead the countries to adopt different and often opposing policies. It is particularly true when there is a severe competition on a specific issue like manufacturing of civilian aircraft. American and European governments are actually criticizing each other for illegal subsidies to Boeing or Airbus companies respectively because there is harsh competition between these two giant companies, one representing American, other European interests..

Protectionist attitude of individual countries in favor of their producers often create problems like the chicken wars, banana wars etc…particularly between Europe and the United States and also between Western countries and China. This is quite an old phenomenon.

In the beginning of 20th century Honduras President and government were severely punished by the United States for having borrowed 30 million dollars from European banks instead of American financial institutions. Finally Honduras accepted to take the same amount of credit from J.P. Morgan of America to pay back the credit taken from European banks. The same happened in Nicaragua.

Even today we see economic confrontations among developed countries. A few years ago when EU Commission has banned the import of live animals from Britain as a precaution against mad cow disease Britain threaten EU by slowing down of all the decision making process within EU.

Now there is huge competition between China and the Western countries because of cheap labor cost in China that provides China a competitive edge particularly in the manufacturing industries.

As long as the competition takes place in the framework of liberal economy it could be considered as a normal process in international relations. But in case a big country use power to protect her economic interests, the international economic order is disturbed. Opium war against China was a case in point.

This happens particularly in the field of oil. It is so important that some countries consider using force to protect their national oil interests with the aim of controlling oil reserves, production facilities and transport of oil outside their national territories. For example the creation of a special military force called Centcom with a headquarter in Tampa, Florida during Carter presidency was aiming precisely the establishment of military control over the oil-rich areas in the Middle East and North Africa in case American oil interests are threatened.

It is generally believed that precisely oil interests rather than the intention to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction had motivated the American intervention in Iraq in 2003. In fact UN and IAEA experts had never found a trace of WMD during their long investigations.

Sometimes such economic interests may lead some countries to overthrow foreign governments that were not serving their national interests. American and British role in the overthrow of the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953 and the American involvement in the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 were typical examples of that.

There is also indication of foreign involvement in the democratic elections in other countries. Direct and indirect interventions of big powers often influence the election results in some countries. For that matter financial sources are largely used. The local presses of the country as well as some academicians are somehow convinced to defend the views and interests of big powers instead of their national interests.

Therefore foreign policy is a rather complicated area that is not always conducted according to the rules written in the textbooks of diplomacy. Experienced diplomats will tell you that in diplomacy there are more exceptions than rules.

I said at the beginning that to seek the common interest should be the best way of conducting foreign policy provided that your interlocutors share the same intention in highlighting the common interest. But in case they try to impose their own will you have no choice to struggle to defend your own national interest. That is why, some people call diplomacy ‘war without arms.’ Particularly in multilateral diplomacy you see very often diplomats struggling for hours and even days to insert a particular word or even a comma in a common declaration or agreement.

In my professional life, I have witnessed a number of diplomatic confrontations, some of which I have actively participated.
Thank you for your attention.

I would be pleased to answer you questions if you have any.