-CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY- -UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION- ADDRESS OF H.E. MR. MEVLÜT ÇAVUŞOĞLU MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY AT THE 12TH AMBASSADORS CONFERENCE NOVEMBER 10, 2020, ONLINE Esteemed Ambassadors, Dear Colleagues, I am very glad to address you as Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the occasion of the 12th Ambassadors Conference. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to receive, firsthand, instructions from our President. I would like to reiterate once again our gratitude to His Excellency on behalf of all of us. As always, we will continue working with enthusiasm and devotion and follow his instructions. Today is November 10. We commemorate Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of our Republic, with respect and gratitude. May the souls of Atatürk and all our ancestors who founded our Republic be blessed. This year, we celebrate the centenary of our National Sovereignty. In three years, we will celebrate the centenary of our Republic with enthusiasm and pride. This year also marks the centenary of “Hariciye Vekaleti”, namely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 1 We are endowed with a diplomatic tradition that is more than 5 centuries old, dating back to the establishment of the Office of Reis-ül Küttab. This is why we have determined the theme for this year’s Conference as “Turkish Diplomacy at the Centenary of National Sovereignty: From Tradition to the Future”. We are proud of our traditions. We swiftly implement transformations that would help us look into the future with confidence. We are determined to move forward towards our 2023 goals under the astute and strong leadership of our President. The Turkish Foreign Ministry is working day and night to robustly implement our homegrown, national, enterprising and humanitarian foreign policy on the ground and at the table. Esteemed colleagues, Turkey has one of the five largest global diplomatic and consular networks in the world. Currently, we have 152 Turkish Ambassadors stationed abroad, they are with us in front of their screens, and 116 at the headquarters. We have Embassies, Consulates General or Trade Offices almost in every time zone. Right now, it is 5 o’clock in the morning for our westernmost Embassy in Mexico. Whereas, it is midnight in our easternmost Embassy in Wellington. This essentially shows the range of the work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry has an organization and work format that operates around the clock. While one mission is experiencing the sunset, another one observes the sunrise. 2 What does this mean? To begin with, it means that one of the 5th largest data collection, analysis and demarche network is at our disposal. Specially trained and experienced staff from 248 missions feed Ankara with information and assessments every day to support the decision makers. They also fulfil the resulting instructions in the countries where they are stationed. It is important to operate this gigantic mechanism in the most efficient way. With great opportunity comes great responsibility. Change and transformation are the constant facts of life. The one who cannot adapt to change would only vanish. Yesterday we received a detailed briefing about the digital agenda of Turkey. We extend our thanks to Digital Transformation Office. I am proud to say that Turkey is now going through a transformation, in fact a great transformation in digital technologies that drive change. (We have adopted a more agile governance approach with the Presidential system.) Within this framework, our Ministry displays a dynamism at global scale as well. In fact, our Ministry has always been a pioneer in the field of e- government applications. As with all public administration, the principle of diplomacy is to “keep pedaling while you are sitting on a saddle”. Last year, again at this platform, we announced our Digital Diplomacy initiative well before the pandemic. We set the course towards this direction in international processes such as mediation that we spearhead. The pandemic has underlined the accuracy of our foresight. 3 This year, during the Istanbul Mediation Conference we organized using greenbox technology and which reached 22.000 people, we discussed the importance of digital technologies for peace efforts for the third time. As you may know, last year, in New York we co-chaired a Ministerial meeting in this regard. Likewise, we had set the theme of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum as “Diplomacy in Digital Age” long before the pandemic. In consequence, when the pandemic obliged the whole world to stay at home, we were able to quickly accommodate to diplomacy in the digital environment. • During the pandemic, I attended a total of 61 diplomatic videoconferences, 11 of which with our President. • Our esteemed Deputy Ministers, Directors General and other colleagues held similar meetings. • We benefited from videoconferencing within the Ministry. We organized meetings with our Ambassadors and Consuls General. This is how we monitored the situation and practices in other countries with regard to the pandemic. • We brought the Antalya Diplomacy Forum to life by using digital means. We have transformed it from an idea into a platform to shape ideas. In this way, we contributed also to the formation of ideas on prominent topics on the global diplomatic agenda. In sum, we are acting with the goal of being among the ones who lead the digital age, not the ones who try to catch up with it. We rank 7th in the G20 Digital Diplomacy Index. In terms of social media interaction, we moved up to the 3rd place. Our Digital Diplomacy initiative also contributes to the executive capacity of our Ministry. It transforms our capabilities in line with the needs of the current age. We will continue our efforts to 4 make use of technology in foreign policy and to provide more efficient services with the help of technology. You know that I care deeply about the quality of our services provided to our citizens abroad. Throughout this process, not only our citizens abroad and their relatives in our country, but the whole world has witnessed how sensitive you are on the matter, too. Therefore, I would like to tell you that your awareness is much appreciated. Our greatest responsibility is to serve them well and protect their rights. We are about to launch a new online service called “HIZIR” that answers our citizens’ calls and questions around the clock by using artificial intelligence. By means of our expanding diplomatic network and digital capacity, we keep improving all together the quality of the services we offer. It is essential to upskill our diplomats of all levels in line with the requirements of our times. Therefore, we are already working on trainings to develop digital skills. Together, we will benefit more from digital technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence in areas like public diplomacy, consular services, strategic foresight and foreign policy analysis. When it comes remote working, we distribute modern devices to our headquarters and overseas missions. We set-up the necessary infrastructure to meet the growing needs for high- speed internet connection and hardware in our Ministry, and we keep building it up. We also started the required infrastructure and personnel planning to make use of big data engineering. We exchange ideas and cooperate with other countries and institutions about the impacts of digitalization on diplomacy. 5 We are deriving our strength from our traditions. At the same time, our Ministry is embracing the future. In its essence, diplomacy is communication and negotiation by various means between the people who represent their countries. This is the tradition and the future as far as we can foresee. Naturally, diplomacy methods must adapt to the technology and features of the current age. Thus, we maintained our face-to-face diplomacy without pacing down despite several travel restrictions imposed during the pandemic. As per the beautiful saying of Ibn Arabi, “The essence of being lies in action.” Hence, the visits have never stopped. I have paid 24 visits abroad since the beginning of the pandemic. We have received 19 Heads of State or Government, and 18 Foreign Ministers. Last week we hosted the Foreign Ministerial Meeting of the South-East European Cooperation Process. We supported these visits with phone calls and online meetings. His Excellency President Erdoğan has made 205 phone calls and 11 videoconferences meanwhile I have made 251 phone calls and 50 videoconferences. Not to mention instant phone calls and messages. In other words, we diversified our means and maintained communication and negotiation with our interlocutors. Since the very beginning of the pandemic, the Turkish diplomacy has kept providing services without any interruption. During this period, we coordinated the most extensive repatriation operation of the history of the Republic via our Center for Coordination and Support established within the Ministry. 6 Yesterday, His Excellency President Erdoğan shared the relevant figures again and expressed his appreciation for your work. I also would like to thank our Center for Coordination and Support, our Embassies and Consulate Generals and all my colleagues who contributed to these efforts. We also extended a helping hand to the entire world at a time when most countries have turned inwards. Again, the figures were shared yesterday with you and the public opinion by His Excellency President Erdoğan: Hence, we take pride in being the leader in humanitarian affairs during the pandemic too. While performing these services appreciated by everyone, we had many examples showing us that public service means serving the people. Sometimes they made us smile, sometimes we were moved to tears. • Our Ambassador took little Eren who was born in Thailand and his mother Ms. Nilay to the repatriation flight. I wish Eren and his parents many years of good health and happiness! • Our daughter Ela, a girl with a chronic disease, could not find her mediacation in Switzerland.