Hurriyet, Turkey
April 25 2010

Witnessing the making of foreign policy aboard FM’s plane

Sunday, April 25, 2010
SERKAN DEMÄ°RTAÅ?/First person
ANKARA ` Hürriyet Daily News

As a journalist, I have been covering Turkey’s foreign policy and
international relations for years. I have covered numerous trips
abroad of Turkish foreign ministers and many international summits,
especially for NATO and the European Union. But I should confess, I
have never spent a full five days with a foreign minister on the same
jet traveling from one corner of the world to another. This trip of
`six countries in five days’ was truly a lifetime experience.

Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu travels on a Gulfstream 14-seat
special jet that was bought during Turgut Ã-zal’s term as prime
minister. DavutoÄ?lu is working with a small but a very efficient team:
ministry spokesperson Burak Ã-zügergin, special advisor Cihad Erginay,
Chief of Foreign Ministry Cabinet Gürcan Balık, advisor Ali Sarıkaya,
press advisor Osman Sert and chief of security Sabri Yıldız.

The Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review joined the team a week ago
for the longest single trip DavutoÄ?lu has taken since he became
foreign minister.

The first stop was Baku. After talks in the Azeri capital, we headed
to Tehran for an overnight stay. Then a long journey to Belgrade. A
change in the program was announced during the flight and we went to
Brussels Wednesday instead of Rome. Talks after talks, from Brussels
to Tallinn, the Estonian capital that hosted an informal NATO foreign
ministers’ meeting. The last stop was for a short stay in Cyprus where
the presidential hand-over ceremony took place.

`We are used to the minister’s tempo,’ says Osman Sert who dropped his
journalism career eight months ago to join DavutoÄ?lu’s team. `It was
an important decision but now I can also see the other side of our
business.’

For Ã-zügergin, his 25-year career as a diplomat will be crowned in a
couple of month time when he will take his post in Zagreb, as Turkey’s
ambassador to Croatia. `Sometimes I think we are trying to prove that
a week is eight days,’ he says in describing the tempo of DavutoÄ?lu.
Ã-zügergin is tasked to provide a healthy flow of information to
journalists on the foreign policy issues while Sert is focusing more
on the minister’s relations with the media.

The lines of the division of labor on the plane are obvious and
functional. Balık deals with logistics while Erginay maintains
communications with the ministries’ different departments. Sarıkaya is
the minister’s right arm and Sabri Yıldız, of course, provides
security.

The picture depicted here constitutes a very good ground for
implementing the foreign policy DavutoÄ?lu is trying to build.
`Whenever he finds time to rest and closes his eyes, he comes up with
a new idea,’ jokingly says Sert.

Following decades spent in academia, DavutoÄ?lu found himself as a
special advisor to the prime minister and foreign minister in 2002
when the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, won the
elections. Always dreaming to return to university, DavutoÄ?lu has
decided not to enter Parliament but instead accepted to become foreign
minister last year. In pursuit of his famous book `Strategic Depth,’
DavutoÄ?lu is now in a better position to implement what he has in
mind.

`Turkish foreign policy should have a vision on all issues, regional
and global,’ DavutoÄ?lu said. `From the Caucasus to the Balkans, from
the Middle East to Central Asia, from Europe to Africa, not only our
historical and cultural ties but our current interests oblige us to
develop good relations with the countries in these regions.’

With his newly developed `zero problems with neighbors’ policy, Turkey
concluded the establishment of strategic cooperation councils with
Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Greece and provided visa-free travel
with some neighboring countries.

Our trip covered a good selection of the main issues of the foreign
policy. In Baku, we saw aspects of the Turkish and Armenian
reconciliation process while in Tehran we covered a more global issue
in which Turkey stands as a mediator.

Belgrade proved to us the importance of stability in the Balkan region
with NATO accepting to grant membership prospects to Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Brussels, home of the EU and NATO, is always atop the
list of Turkish ministers’ destination. In Tallinn where we could see
the last snow of this winter, we revisited the NATO agenda and the
rewriting of the alliance’s strategic concept, nuclear disarmament,
Afghanistan and other institutional matters. Last but not least, a
short visit was paid to northern Cyprus where the minister attended
the presidential handover.

`Well, altogether we have lived through this week during which we
could oversee the main dimensions of Turkey’s foreign policy,’
DavutoÄ?lu said during the flight from Tallinn to Nicosia.