Friday, 2 October 2009
The Turkish foreign minister said on Friday that Turkey and the European Union (EU) were sharing common destiny. Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey and the EU were sharing a common history and fate.
"Our vision is to make an EU including Turkey a global power in 2050," Davutoglu said during a meeting in the Belgian capital of Brussels.
The European Policy Center organized a meeting on "Turkey and the EU: achieving synergy in foreign policy" in cooperation with the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey (TUSKON).
Davutoglu said he saw Europe as a sub-continent or an extension of Eurasia like the Indian Peninsula, instead of a continent that had borders or walls like that in Berlin during the Cold War era.
"As the Berlin Wall has been demolished, nobody can talk about cultural, political or economic walls separating Europe from Asia, Africa and even America," he said.
Davutoglu said Europe, a center of power in the world in the 19th century, felt it necessary to lay the foundation of the EU after it had started to lose power due to clashes among itself after the World War II.
"Establishing the EU was a right solution to end the recession of Europe. It was a positive, creative and proactive answer," he said.
Davutoglu said however, the rest of the world also exerted efforts, and China, Russia and the United States had entered into a new transformation.
Therefore, Europe did not have an option to stop in this rapidly-changing world, he said. Davutoglu said Europe should choose between the two alternatives of becoming a global power or a continental power.
"If we, the Europeans, want to become a global power, there are two obstacles --faced by all European powers from the first ages till today--we should overcome," he said and enumerated them as a strategic connection with Africa, particularly Asia, and multi-culturalism.
Davutoglu said the EU definitely needed two key countries, i.e. Russia and Turkey, to become a global power.
Also, the Turkish foreign minister said he could not say Turkey had reached its final borders after the Lausanne Treaty was signed.
"Of course, our borders are obvious since we have the strongest army in our region from the perspective of international law and real policy, and since we have strong international legal references," he said.
Davutoglu said Turkey's geography was multi-dimensional, and defined Turkey as a European country with extension to Asia, a Balkan country, a Caucasian country, a Black Sea and Middle Eastern country, a Mediterranean, Caspian and even a Gulf country.
The minister said Turkey did not have the luxury to ignore any of those regions, and was behaving with this "historic responsibility."
Davutoglu said Turkey, which was opening new representations every year and which was asked to be a mediator in many world problems, wanted to play a global role, not just deal with regional problems.
The foreign minister said that EU's neighborhood policy also covered East Europe, Caucasus, Middle East and North Africa.
"At the same time, Turkey wants to achieve the synergy by cooperating with the EU in this region," he said.
Davutoglu said Turkey's pluses in its diplomacy would become the pluses of the union after Turkey became a member.
"Everybody has been convinced that Turkey would bring stability to the EU, not problems," he said.
Davutoglu also said that he believed Turkey was a part of Europe's history, geography and culture.
