{"id":20563,"date":"2010-07-10T22:45:41","date_gmt":"2010-07-10T20:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=20563"},"modified":"2014-01-05T19:55:32","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T17:55:32","slug":"ahmet-davutoglu-we-are-a-part-of-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/07\/10\/ahmet-davutoglu-we-are-a-part-of-the-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahmet Davutoglu: ‘We Are a Part of the West’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nWhat is Turkey up to? A stalwart member of NATO, many believe it is
\nnow tilting east. In May, it sealed a nuclear-exchange deal with Iran,
\nand in June Ankara voted no on U.N. sanctions against Iran. Then, the
\nkilling of nine Turks aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla by Israeli
\nforces led to a crisis between the longtime allies, and further
\nquestions about the direction of Turkey’s foreign policy. Semin
\nG\u00fcm\u00fcsel G\u00fcner and Selcuk Tepeli of NEWSWEEK Turkey recently met with
\nForeign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to discuss these issues.<\/p>\n

Excerpts:
\nYou said relations with Israel would be broken off. What happens now?
\nThere is an action, a crime here. Turkey’s demand is rather lucid:
\nsince there is a death, the killing side is acknowledged and an
\ninternational commission should be formed and make its decision with
\nrespect to this fact in the frame of objective provisions of law. If
\nIsrael does not want an international commission, then it has to
\nacknowledge this crime, apologize, and pay compensation. If the
\ninternational community and the international law do not ask about the
\ncauses of these deaths, we, as the government of the Republic of
\nTurkey, have the right to ask. Turkey-Israel relations will never be
\non a normal footing until we have an answer. And Turkey has the right
\nto one-sidedly apply its own sanctions.<\/p>\n

“Relations would never get normalized” and “breaking off relations”
\nhave different meanings.
\nThe relations would go into a breaking-off trend. And if this trend
\ncontinues, that is the stance the relations would reach. But this does
\nnot mean something will happen tomorrow or in a week, 10 days, one
\nmonth. If the right steps are not taken, the relations would go in the
\ndirection of a break-off process. However, I cannot share with you
\nwhat I have told them behind closed doors. They know what kind of
\nsanctions we would impose.
\nAnkara’s foreign policy has been “zero problems with neighbors.” If
\nrelations are cut off, what would the foreign policy look like?
\n“Zero problems with neighbors” is a value. But another equally
\nimportant value is to establish peace. If any actor blocks peace
\nprocesses, keeps civilians under blockade, massacres civil people on
\ninternational waters, the peace value could not be disregarded for the
\nsake of “zero problems with neighbors.” These policies of Israel are a
\nmenace to regional peace. Excusing these policies that go against
\npeace just to develop zero-problem relations is out of the question.
\nTurkey and Brazil signed a nuclear-exchange deal with Iran. Were you
\nsurprised that the U.N. Security Council permanent members criticized
\nit?
\nTurkey has worked alongside its allies from the beginning. During the
\nentire process, since then-director general to the International
\nAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei brought the idea of a
\ndeal to us, we tried to create an atmosphere of confidence, and the
\nIAEA and the U.N. encouraged us to deliver on the agreement with
\nTehran. This is not something we wanted to do on our own.
\nTurkey voted “no” on further sanctions against Iran. Might Washington
\nhave taken this as a vote against it?
\nWe have explained several times that it was not a “no” against the
\nU.S. or Mr. Obama. That was a “yes” vote for diplomacy.
\nCan Turkish foreign policy continue these moves toward the East at the
\nrisk of losing the West?
\nWe are a part of the West. If the West sees us as outside and an
\nobject that can be lost or won, their logic is wrong. We have an equal
\nright to speak in NATO as any other country. No one has the right to
\nsee the Western alliance as its domain and name another as inside or
\noutside of it. If Western values are soft power, economic
\ninterdependency, human rights, then we defend them. We, however, are
\nnow facing a test. Nine civilians were murdered on the high seas. Are
\nwe going to voice objection when human rights are violated by an
\nEastern or Muslim country but remain silent when Israel violates human
\nrights? If this double standard is a Western value, we are not for it.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is Turkey up to? A stalwart member of NATO, many believe it is now tilting east. In May, it sealed a nuclear-exchange deal with Iran, and in June Ankara voted no on U.N. sanctions against Iran. Then, the killing of nine Turks aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla by Israeli forces led to a crisis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":20564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[3044],"class_list":["post-20563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-mavi-marmara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}