Turkish and Australian Foreign Ministers Attended a Panel at USAK House, 1 February 2011

Date: 02.02.2011

The International Strategic Research Organization (USAK) organized a panel given by Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Kevin Rudd Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, on February 1st, 2011. This panel was titled as “Turkey & Australia -The Creative Foreign Policy in the 21st Century.” The distinguished speakers talked about Turkey-Australian cooperation and multilateral action to solve the global problems.

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu started his speech by asking why Turkey and Australia need creative foreign policies. According to Davutoglu, some countries can survive or be influential even if they follow the traditional conventional foreign policy, rather than creative foreign policy, but there are some countries if they do not implement creative foreign policy they cannot play any role. Davutoglu said that Turkey and Australia, for different reasons, were in this category of second group of countries which must implement creative foreign policy.

Davutoglu said that one of the best examples of “central” country was Turkey, for its geography and history. He said that the geographical and historical continuity forced Turkey to find certain ways to minimize the risks and maximize the potentials. According to him, the implementation of traditional foreign policies, which in this sense mean trying to survive, is just not good enough to be a foreign policy objective for a central country.

Davutoglu said that Australia was one of the best examples of the continental powers. It is not a global power but it still plays an important role in Pacific, in East Asia and in Asia in general. For these reasons, according to Davutoglu, "Australia must play a pro-active role.”

He said that Turkish-Australia could continue to cooperate through the creative foreign policy. As an important characteristic of the relations, besides geo-strategic significance, he mentioned “historical-psychological dimension", saying that "Our geographies are compatible, not competitive.”

Davutoglu also stressed the economic importance of both countries and stated that Turkey and Australia had the same position on nuclear disarmament, climate problems and many other issues so there was a "great potential to share.” In his opinion, they have same commitment to political values, democracy and rule of role, which makes Turkey and Australia be important players for regional and global peace.

In the end of his speech, Davutoglu mentioned the document they signed Action Plan of Turkish and Australian Ministries of Foreign Affairs" and agreed on main principles for new framework of strategic cooperation that "will contribute a lot to regional and global peace".

Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs Kevin Rudd gave a speech after Turkish MFA. Minister Rudd underlined that Turkey and Australia having good relations could work together in the establishment of creative diplomacy. He said that Turkey and Australia formed an extraordinary friendship. Rudd showed Turkey as an example to the Islamic World in terms of its developing pluralist democracy and growing economy. He underlined that democracy of Turkey was a strong and successful one.

Rudd also stated that Turkey has a huge potential and capacity in terms of its hard and soft politics having influence across the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, Balkans as well as Africa and Latin America. He stated that Turkish companies were also very successful around the world today and Turkish diplomacy had advanced very well. Rudd also underlined the main points that describe Australia and its foreign policy. Rudd added that Turkey and Australia having shared values could create common creative diplomacy.

After the panel held with the title "Turkey & Australia -The Creative Foreign Policy in the 21st Century" the participants directed their questions to the distinguished speakers.

1 February 2011