FM defends policies as opposition hits hard

ANKARA

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu responds to recent opposition criticisms of his policies in Parliament during a discussion to launch a censure motion against him. AA photo

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu responds to recent opposition criticisms of his policies in Parliament during a discussion to launch a censure motion against him.

Ankara will continue efforts to make its region a stable and peaceful one,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, fending off accusations from the opposition that his policies have been detrimental to Turkey’s international standing.

“Turkey will be the center of the global conscience,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said yesterday when addressing Parliament in response to recent opposition criticisms of his policies. “If anyone says Turkey has problems with all of its neighbors, they need a lesson in geography, or should list all of Turkey’s neighbors,” Davutoğlu said.

Parliament’s opposition parties, however, have criticized Davutoğlu for his policies, saying the country now has multiple problems with neighbors instead of its vaunted “zero problems with neighbors.”
“Davutoğlu’s strategic depth paradigm has become a black hole. There is no national reconciliation on our foreign policy,” Osman Korutürk, a Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy, said yesterday in Parliament during a discussion to launch a censure motion against the minister. “Turkey never got involved in the internal conflicts of its neighbors in the past,” Korutürk said, adding “But now Turkey steps up for every issue as if it were its own.”

Hasip Kaplan of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) warned Davutoğlu that making sectarian politics would seriously harm Turkey.

In response to criticisms that Turkey has interfered with the Syrian National Council, Davutoğlu said Ankara did not interfere but added that there was a possibility that a Syrian of Turkish origin would be a strong candidate to become the new head of the council in the next term.

Parliament did not approve the censure motion.