French officials are looking forward to their president’s visit to Turkey on Feb. 25. He will come within his capacity as president of the G-20. This will be his second visit with this hat after Washington. “This visit shows the importance France attaches to hearing Turkey’s views on issues that the G-20 will be tackling,” say French officials.
I cannot help but have a cynical attitude about the visit, which is expected to take place in Ankara probably without a stop in Istanbul, the financial center of Turkey. It is a known fact that Nicolas Sarkozy prefers to stay away from Turkey in order to avoid giving contradictory messages to his own public, which has always heard how Turkey needs to stay outside the European Union. This is also the view of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, yet this has not stopped her from coming to Turkey. It is not possible to understand Sarkozy’s anxiety of not being photographed on Turkish (or should I say Anatolian) soil. The G-20 presidency obviously provided an excellent pretext to come to Turkey.
Although I do not have the intention of overestimating the importance of the visit, I should not underestimate the perspective of the French officials, which is possibly shared by Turkish officials as well. Instead of looking at the visit from a cynical, negative point of view, they prefer to see the cup half-full. Although Sarkozy met Turkish leadership on the sidelines of international conferences, nothing takes the place of a visit. And at least, one can hope, he will have an extra five minutes in the plane before landing at Esenboğa Airport to be briefed on Turkish-French economic relations, and might be surprised with the volume it has reached. There might even be an extra five minutes in the car from the airport to the Prime Ministry for him to be briefed on Turkish views toward regional issues, which again he might find the overlap much to his surprise. And perhaps he might have an extra three minutes on his fight back to Paris to reflect on Turkey.
Obviously he cannot leave Ankara without touching on bilateral ties as well as the regional turmoil. Yet he will also have to lend an ear to what Turkey thinks of the global economic issues.
Most of the emerging economies that became interested in an enlarged G-8 were at the beginning solely interested in being part of it, Turkey included. At the beginning their contribution remained a little limited, as some of the essential international financial and monetary issues were rather managed directly by developed countries, although the rest of the world suffered consequences. Take the subprime mortgage crisis. As the system did not exist in Turkey, you would not expect Turkey or other countries to brainstorm for a remedy. In fact, leaders within Turkey’s state mechanism, as well as the opinion makers, did not ponder too much about what to do for a better international economic system, as they had enough to ponder about the problems of Turkey’s economy.
Actually in 2009, when Great Britain held the G-20 presidency, the British consulate, in cooperation with a Turkish university, initiated a series of conferences in Istanbul to brainstorm on the G-20 agenda. It struck me at the time that it was the British consulate that took the mission upon itself to stimulate discussion on international financial issues.
The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has ambitiously aimed to have a say in international organizations. In fact Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is on the record saying that Turkey will and should have a say in shaping the new world order. The government takes pride when some countries in the southern flank tell Turkey it should be their voice in organizations like the G-20. In fact Davutoğlu has been saying Turkey will be the voice of the poor and the victim. It is no coincidence that the foreign ministers’ meeting of the Council of Europe in Istanbul will take place at the same time as the summit of less developed countries. In order to take on such a mission, Turkey needs to be well prepared. It seems that Turkey’s civil servants have been more active in the preparatory meetings, voicing detailed demands. In doing so, they should not neglect being in touch with those countries that expect their views to be voiced by Turkey.
Source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com
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