Agenda

Author: Professor Dr.Ramazan Gözen of Ankara's Çankaya University

President Abdullah Gül visited Pakistan between March 30- April 2, 2010. Reports and commentaries praising Turkey dominated the Pakistani media on the occasion of his visit. The editorial in the Daily Times captioned President Gül's visit said that Turkey's achievements in domestic and foreign policy should set an example to Pakistan.

It said further that Turkey evolving from the Ottoman Empire into a modern country merged its religious and historical values with those of the west, that its democracy despite some of its shortcomings is very powerful, that its constitutional reform process is an ongoing one, that such areas as its economy and education developed hugely and that its foreign policy scored great success in its EU bid.

The editorial, in a note of self-criticism, referred to the problems Pakistan had to cope with and said these problems can be resolved by taking Turkey as an example.

These views and recommendations are not new because many articles heaping praise on Turkey have been written in the past decade by the print journalists of many countries from Egypt to Syria, to Bosnia Herzegovina and Tadjikistan. The questions needed to be asked at this point are these: What is the reason of Turkey being so much lauded and can Turkey set a precedent for the other countries in the region?

The reason why Turkey is honored by so much praise is that Turkey achieved great success by combining modern values with the assets of traditional culture. When compared with the others in the region, Turkey can be seen as the most successful country. With its economic might, democratic experience, military clout, technological development level, social dynamism and its position in world politics, Turkey is at a much better standing as against the other states in its region.

Although the foundations of this success go back to the Ottoman Empire, the proclamation of the republic strengthened it. Turkey adopted such values as western democracy, market economy and state of the law and introduced a new interpretation to its own social values in the light of these developments.

Turkey's uninterrupted dialogue with the western world has also played a vital role in this. Turkey has always taken its place in western institutions and organization part for historical reasons and part geo-political obligations. Member of the Council of Europe since 1949 and of NATO since 1952, and an EU aspirant since 1964, Turkey has continuously deepened its ties with western values. On the other hand, Turkey has never ignored its relations with Islam and the Middle East. It has assumed a steadily ascending position within the Organization of the Islamic Conference since 1969 and has nurtured multi-dimensional relations with the world of Islam.

This trait of Turkey to embrace both the West and the world of Islam has made favorable contributions to its domestic policy and its position in global politics. The fundamental differences setting Turkey apart from the other regional countries are the following: long years of struggle for democracy and freedoms have strengthened the culture of tolerance and co-habitation. The election process has developed the competition for political opinions and projects. Its international position and responsibilities have created a pro-peace and pro-stability foreign policy.

Its open stance to global developments has increased its economic, political, technological and social standards.

Turkey's most important characteristic, despite the ongoing problems in some areas, is its gritty determination to constantly adjust itself to and catch up with the new developments in the world.

Can these developments set an example or be a model to the other countries? Or can the other countries copy Turkey one way or another? Can Turkey market its model to the other countries? Our answer to questions of this sort is negative. The development process of each country is based on different socio-cultural, historical and international factors the quality of problems do not resemble one another completely. Each country has its own experiences and issues. The resultant advantages and disadvantages of countries are distinctly different from one another.

So, no country, whether it is from West or East, can set a complete model to another country.

However, it is natural for countries to be inspired or influenced by one another. Especially, countries living under similar global circumstances and periods are likely to learn from one another. There have always been inter-actions on a global scale and the history of international relations abounds in these examples. Democracy, for example, is something which originated from the Anglo-Saxon countries, but it has spread to the other European countries, hence the world.

Finally, the implementations of Turkey cannot possibly be completely imitated by the other countries in the region. The thing is that they can learn lessons from Turkey's democratic, economic, social and cultural experiences and apply them to their own conditions exclusively. They can work to materialize their own achievements taking inspiration from Turkey.

The most impressive way of a country exporting, so to speak, its successes, can be ensured by developing voluntary cooperation, promoting common values and developing mechanisms of mutual assistance and solidarity. In this context, the multilateral dialogue and cooperation Turkey has enjoyed with the regional countries in recent years may have made its achievements easily adoptable.

Back to what we said at the beginning of our programme, the contribution of pivotal importance that Turkey can make to Pakistan is to develop multi-lateral relations between the two countries. We believe that if Pakistan puts into implementation the mechanisms enabling it to transform itself, which, in fact, it has done to a certain extent, it will undoubtedly pay off, yielding the favorable and desired results.