Turkish ambassador talks up similarities

The United States should consider Turkey an increasingly important ally in its current foreign… The United States should consider Turkey an increasingly important ally in its current foreign policy, the Turkish ambassador told an audience of Pitt students and faculty yesterday.

Ambassador Nabi Sensoy spoke in the William Pitt Union about Turkey’s relationship with the United States, its attempts at joining the European Union, and the goals of Turkey’s foreign policy with respect to its location between Europe, the Middle East and Asia, on what he called a “rare outing” from his office in Washington, D.C.

He said that Turkey continues to become an important facilitator in relations between Western countries and the Middle East, because Turkey is a secular government within the Muslim world.

Turkey modernized after World War I, which ended the reign of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire.

“Turkey is not a Muslim state,” Sensoy said. “Unlike many Middle Eastern countries, Turkey is a democracy – a secular democracy.”

He explained that Turkey shares a concern about terrorism with the United States, one item on a list of commonalities between the two countries.

“This is something that no individual country can really fight against effectively unless they have help from their friends,” Sensoy said.

He said that terrorism, the limiting of weapons of mass destruction and the smuggling of drugs, humans and weaponry are concerns for both Turkey and the United States that their foreign policies address.

Sensoy spoke about Turkey’s relationship with Iran and said that people became suspicious about Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the past eight years, even though Iran started the program 20 years ago.

He said that Turkey does not want a country with nuclear capability in the area.

“We’d like to see a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East,” he said.

When asked about Turkey’s relationship with Armenia, Sensoy said that diplomacy is not possible because Armenia does not recognize Turkish borders and interprets what happened to Armenians in 1915 as genocide.

A resolution introduced by the U.S. Congress last year proposed a bill to officially recognize the killing and deportation of Armenians in Turkey under the Ottoman Empire as genocide. According to the bill, which did not pass, the Ottoman government killed 1.5 million and deported 2 million Armenians.

Sensoy said that no tribunal was held to determine whether the Ottoman Empire committed genocide, and that no sufficient evidence exists to prove that the empire intended to annihilate a population – therefore, Turkey does not recognize the events as genocide.

He said the Armenian people have no proof of these events, yet they want to politicize them, and that the proposed bill in the U.S. Congress was part of this effort.

Turkey wants to normalize relations with Armenia in spite of this “complex issue,” Sensoy said, which is why Turkey proposed to organize a committee of historians to make archives available for evaluation.

“Let’s come together and decide,” he said.

The ambassador addressed questions from the audience about oil and gas pipelines under construction in Turkey and the nation’s continued push for acceptance into the European Union.

He said that although Turkey’s goal is to come to standards with European rules, the European Union asks Turkey to make political concessions in exchange for membership, which Sensoy said is unacceptable.

“It is no secret that some important countries are very much opposed to Turkey’s accession into the EU,” Sensoy said after explaining that the EU did not impose the same concessions on its other members.

Sensoy said that coming to Pitt was a “very welcome getaway” and told students it was “very rejuvenating” to talk to a younger generation.

Before Sensoy’s appearance, an informal group discussion on the legitimacy of the Armenian genocide took place.

Levent Parlakgunes, a Turkish grad student in Pitt’s School of Public and International Affairs who participated in the discussion, said that he also sees relations between the United States and Turkey in a positive light.

He said his experiences as a Turkish student at Pitt are positive, especially because his heritage helps to facilitate better class discussions.

Parlakgunes heard about the event and thought, “My ambassador is coming to my school, so I should be there.

“I’m not alone here,” he said. “My state has a significant existence.”