I thank the Chairman and the distinguished members of the Houses of the Oireachtas committee. I hope I pronounced it correctly. It is a great honour for me to be in Leinster House addressing this joint committee. Yesterday and today I had excellent meetings. Yesterday I had an official meeting with my dear colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Martin, and President McAleese, who is coming to Turkey soon. We realised we had not met for quite some time so we decided to have high level contacts as frequently as possible. After my visit here and after President McAleese comes to Turkey, we hope the Minister for Foreign Affairs will visit Turkey. We want to strengthen our ties.
I had excellent impressions on my visits to several cultural centres. The most impressive was the Long Room of Trinity College because I was interested as an academic. The Book of Kells was so impressive to my brain and to my heart. There is such a strong tradition of Irish culture and it should be known by all humanity. As the representatives of the Irish nation I extend to you my admiration and respect for this high culture in Irish history.
Today I had meetings in UCD. Knowing the relations between UCD and Trinity College, I wanted to have balance. As an academic, I had excellent meetings with academic colleagues and PhD students. I exchanged intellectual views on history, strategy and the future. I had another meeting at the Institute of International and European Affairs, a think tank. I also had the chance to visit two interesting bookstores, one of which is modern, the other second-hand. I found excellent books on Irish history and a famous book from our literature by an eastern philosopher and poet, Sa'di. The book, The Gulistan of Sa’di, is a Turkish classic. It was amazing to find that in a bookstore in Dublin and shows how close our cultural contacts have been. Today, this is the last meeting before my meeting with the Minister with responsibility for European affairs. It is very meaningful for me to finish my visit with this meeting. By meeting the members of this Oireachtas committee I am meeting the Irish nation. Members represent the Irish nation and I am not only addressing the individual committee members but the whole nation. I wish to express my admiration and best regards to the Irish nation, a great nation of culture and dignity.
With reference to dignity, I refer to our parliamentary relations, which did not start in recent years or decades. The first connection was the letter from the Dáil to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in 1921, addressed to the representatives of foreign nations. The letter was sent to the Parliament in Ankara, the first Parliament of the Turkish republic. A strong relationship emerged, and yesterday President McAleese mentioned that when she was a child, she thought Atatürk was an Irish hero. In her house, pictures of Irish national leaders and Atatürk were beside one another. In Gallipoli, unfortunately, we fought in different armies on different fronts, but from those events we were able to produce a history of friendship and brotherhood. These are the feelings and this relationship should continue. When I return to Turkey I will convey best wishes and best regards to the Grand National Assembly and the speaker of the Parliament. I will suggest having more frequent contact between the two parliaments and foreign relations committees.
Turkish-Irish co-operation can contribute much to the European Union and to many global events. In UCD I mentioned that Turkey and Ireland are nations of migration. There are Turkish and Irish communities in different parts of the world, such as the US, Australia and many other countries. Close co-operation between Turkey and Ireland will facilitate Turkish-Irish communal relations in many parts of the world. We have many similarities like the old tradition of large families and trying to harmonise tradition and modernity. Turkish and Irish cultures have many similarities. We can contribute much together.
Regarding foreign relations, I wish to underline the issues facing global society and international relations. We are in a transformation process where global, economic, political and cultural structures are being reshaped after the post-Cold War era. The Cold War had a static structure based on two superpowers and two blocs. The concept of East and West had different meanings in the years of the Cold War compared with today. After the Cold War there was a transitional process that is continuing, even though it is 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. There are many frozen conflicts around us on the global scene. There is a need for the formation of the United Nations system and a new response to the challenges of new geopolitics in the political sense in the international community, the European Union and Turkey. We should all respond to these challenges.
There are also many challenges in the economic field. These challenges were regional, economic, global and cultural in the 1990s. There was a crisis in the Balkans and in the Caucasus. These crises ended in certain frozen conflicts. The economic crises of the 1990s had an impact internationally, although events in Brazil, Asia or Russia did not have the same global impact as the recent financial and economic crisis. There is a need for a readjustment of the international financial system. While cultural conflicts in the 1990s had ethnocentric or micro-national tendencies, after 11 September 2001 we have had to respond to more globalised cultural confrontations. Where an issue of political, economic and cultural transformation and challenge arises, the European Union should respond by leading the process rather than being just a reactive player. The Union must decide, for example, what its future role will be in the international political order, how it will respond to these frozen conflicts in the neighbourhood of Europe and its role in the context of reform of the United Nations. Similarly, in an economic sense, what is the future of the European Union in terms of the competition between economic power centres? In a cultural sense, what will be the response of the Union to multiculturalism both in Europe and outside Europe? These are the challenges facing the Union.
After the Cold War, Turkey tried to redefine its foreign policy to minimise the risks around us and to maximise our influence. Many of the frozen conflicts to which I referred were directly related to Turkish history or geography. For example, the crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s had a direct impact on Turkish society in that we now have more Bosnians living in our country than in Bosnia-Herzegovina itself. Likewise, there are more Kosovars living in Turkey than in Kosovo, more Albanians in our country than in Albania, more Chechens than in Chechnya itself and more Kurds than there are in Iraq. Thus, we have strong links with our neighbourhood. We want to minimise the risks coming out of that neighbourhood and, as is compatible with European Union policy, to create a much more peaceful and prosperous neighbourhood within Europe.
In all this — political, economic and cultural — Turkey has a central role. In an economic sense, it is a question of energy and security for Europe, including the issue of energy transfer throughout Eurasia. All the basic energy routes from Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East towards the West should go through Turkey. The country is becoming a hub of natural gas and oil. However, our cultural linkages create certain challenges for us. Since we have a strong ambition for European integration and accession, we have sought to develop a well-framed foreign policy that is compatible with European Union policy. I will summarise some of the main principles we have been following since the 1990s but in the last seven years in particular and which I also outlined at the Institute of International and European Affairs.
The first principle is the balance between security and freedom. For any modern society, security and freedom are two main objectives to be achieved. One cannot sacrifice one for the other. If one sacrifices security for freedom, one will have chaos. If one sacrifices freedom for security, one has a dictatorial, autocratic regime. A political system should afford maximum freedom and maximum security without one impacting too far on the other. Our European orientation has helped us to create this balance. Our strategic objective is to strengthen Turkish democracy as well as to strengthen the security environment around Turkey.
The second principle we follow very closely is the policy of zero problems with our neighbours. With this policy, which we declared in 2003, we try to improve our relations with neighbouring countries. After seven years, I can say that nobody expects any short-term or medium-term crisis between Turkey and any of its neighbouring countries. We have excellent relations with our neighbours. There are only two cases in which we have tried very hard but were unable to develop relations as we wanted, namely, the Greek-Cypriot Administration and Armenia. I am sure members follow international relations closely and are therefore aware that in 2004 we worked very hard to secure agreement with the Greek Cypriot side by way of the Annan peace plan. There were lengthy negotiations in Switzerland between Turkey, Greece, Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots and the United Nations, and the European Union also had a representative there in the person of Mr. Günter Verheugen. At the end of these negotiations, a plan was agreed by the four parties. Unfortunately, in the subsequent referendum in 2004, while the Turkish-Cypriot side accepted the proposal by a 65% majority, the Greek Cypriots rejected it by a majority of 75%. We were not able to unite the island and to find a comprehensive settlement, and this issue has become a barrier in Turkish-EU relations. However, we have excellent relations with all other countries. We have joint Cabinet mechanisms with Syria and Iraq, and we now plan to put in place the same mechanisms with Greece and Russia.
The third important principle we are following closely is proactive and preventative diplomacy in surrounding regions, including the Middle East, the Caucasus, the Balkans and central Asia. Turkey has taken many initiatives which I will be pleased to explain to members. For example, Israel and Syria have finally engaged in direct talks after almost after three years of a confidential process. I was mediator between the two sides during these indirect talks. We were also involved in efforts to facilitate Sunni integration into the political process in Iraq in 2005. In the Balkans we have established a trilateral mechanism between Turkey, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to resolve certain issues between the last two. In our last meeting we were able to bring both sides to an agreement whereby Bosnia-Herzegovina assented to establishing diplomatic relations and to sending an ambassador to Belgrade after many years of conflict. We are working hard to make more progress there. In the Caucasus, we established the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform after the war in Georgia. In Lebanon, we initiated several peace initiatives on the Palestinian side. In short, in the context of the frozen conflicts that exist, we have tried to encourage a zone of prosperity and stability in all the regions surrounding Turkey to lessen the risks for our country. The instrument of this policy is high level political dialogue, economic interdependency, multicultural co-existence and a common security framework.
Another important principle concerns our relations with global powers and centres, such as the EU. From the Cold War until now we had two important orientations, one involving the EU and the second with our security framework within NATO. These two important affiliations formed part of the backbone of Turkish foreign policy. The European Union accession process is our main strategic objective, and our role in NATO is very important for the strategic stability of global affairs.
We do not see the relationship as an alternative to Russia, China or others. The Cold War has ended and we see all relationships in a compatible manner. Russia is our main trade partner, with a value of $40 billion, and we also have good relations with China and other Asian countries. The European orientation is fundamental.
We also subscribe to the important principle of having more active involvement in international organisations. I mentioned three problems at the beginning, including geopolitical issues such as economic and cultural order in a global sense. Turkey is a member of the United Nations Security Council and when we became a member last year, we received 153 votes, which was a record. Countries from the Pacific, Latin America, the European Union, Asia and Africa supported us because of the foreign policy and a full trust in Turkey.
In the international economic order we are a member of the G20. In 2002, when the present government was first established, the Turkish economy was the 26th largest in the world. After seven years, the Turkish economy is ranked at 16 in the world, and at six in Europe. It is very dynamic and we have much manpower. We did not use a single euro in aid from the European Union in doing this. We do not have oil and natural gas like some countries in the Middle East. Our power is in the quality of our educated people, geography and our experience.
We hope that by 2023, Turkey will be one of the ten biggest economies in the world. Our population is very dynamic and even in the last economic crisis we were able to overcome problems without any major social or economic dilemmas in Turkey. In the past three months, the rating of Turkey has been increased four times by financial houses.
In a cultural sense, we have established lines of communication with Spain. There are more than 90 states and more than 20 international organisations with volunteer participants. We are trying to respond to all these global challenges through different international fora. In 2010, we will chair three international organisations, including the South-East European Cooperation Process, the security and co-operation organisation of Asia and, in the second half of the year, the Council of Europe. We are an observer member of the African Union and the organisation for economic co-operation. We have a strategic dialogue mechanism with the Pacific Islands Forum, ASEAN and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Through all these links we want to provide some solutions for regional and global peace. This would be a great asset for the European Union, and through this we want to change Turkey's image as a soft power. During the Cold War, Turkey was seen as a hard power having a strong military. We need a strong military presence because of the risky environment but at the same time, Turkey is seen as a soft power using efficient diplomacy as a rising economic power and a centre of cultural activity with many issues. This year, Istanbul is the cultural capital of Europe, and last year we hosted the IMF and World Bank summit. In Istanbul every month there is an economic or cultural summit to contribute to regional and global peace.
All these principles are compatible with our objective of accession to the European Union. We want to proceed quickly with full integration with the European Union, and we are grateful for the Irish support. We want even more vocal support from Ireland because Turkey can contribute much to the Union. This is our strategic objective and if there are questions about that, we can go into details. We can be a big asset for the EU and make the EU a global player in an economic, political and cultural sense.
We are working very hard on our reforms. Turkey has transformed itself immensely in the past ten years with regard to democratisation and standards of living for people. We still have difficulties in the process of integrating with the EU. There are three main reasons for this. There is still the Cyprus question despite all our efforts and a referendum in 2004. In that referendum, Turkish Cypriots voted "Yes" and were punished. They are out of the EU. Greek Cypriots voted "No" and they are in the EU. Greek Cypriots are, unfortunately, using their membership of the EU to slow the process of Turkish integration. Eight chapters of our negotiation were suspended and the rest have not been allowed to be closed. We have opened 12 chapters and closed just one and we want to go faster.
A second factor is the changing political trend in Europe. This is a domestic issue in Europe and in many countries there are more right-wing political administrations which are more sceptical of Turkish membership of the EU. We fully respect this democratic choice. We want pacta sunt servanda, and whoever is in government should continue the commitment of the previous administrations. This is important, and potential Turkish membership of the EU should not be used for domestic or local political purposes.
The third issue is public opinion and we must work harder on this. In Turkey we have a special responsibility to explain the transformation of Turkey and the role of the country in European, regional and global affairs. This is in order that the broader European public will have better information on Turkey and understand its concerns.
We will work hard to continue our reforms, and we now have a new communications strategy for European public opinion. We hope we will soon be able to be a full member of the European Union. Together with the EU, with its potential in the areas of diplomacy, economy and culture, Turkey can contribute much to regional and global peace.
