The Rumi Forum hosted ‘Turkey’s New Foreign Policy Outlook: Challenges and Opportunities ‘ with Hon.Suat Kiniklioglu, Member of Turkish Parliament, Spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
As a spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Turkish parliament, Hon. Kiniklioglu discussed the transition of Turkey from a satellite state during the Cold War to a “pivotal state” in the contemporary realm of international affairs. The most recently elected government has found the role of Turkey as an international player to be growing, partly due to its geographic location. Uniquely, Turkey is able to engage both Western / European powers in addition to nations and regions such as Russia, the Middle East, the Caucuses, the Ukraine, and the Balkans.
Consequently, according to Hon. Kiniklioglu, Turkey has received a number of foreign delegates requesting that the Turkish government become more proactive in international politics. During the question and answer session, Hon. Kiniklioglu also responded to the visit to see the Sudanese president. The minister of Parliament commented that the trip did not receive nearly as much attention domestically as it did here in the U.S. Furthermore, he believes that the Sudanese elite have an interest in their Ottoman past, but there may have been a commercial element to the trip as well. As a nation of 80 million people with a GDP that has been growing roughly 7.5% each year for the last five years, Turkey has been in negotiations to join the European Union. However, Hon. Kiniklioglu expressed the difficulty Turkey faces in these negotiations due to the change in the power dynamic that would occur should Turkey be successfully admitted to the EU. Both domestic (for example the pending headscarf ban in Turkish universities) and foreign politics (the election of President Sarkozy in France) have distracted the government’s focus from these negotiations; however, Hon. Kiniklioglu hopes that the Turkish government will be able to return its focus to the EU in the near future.
The minister of parliament also commented on the state of Turkish-US relations, which were on the brink of rupture until November 2007 when Turkey agreed to station troops on the border of Iraq. Although the interests of Turkey and the United States may not always coincide, Hon. Kiniklioglu stressed the importance of their relationship with the U.S., since Turkey strives to be an evermore democratic, transparent nation where public opinion matters.
