Keynote Speech
Keynote Speech

Summary/Abstract: H. E. Tacan Ildem: Thank you Mr. President, Excellencies distinguished guests to very important event and I would like to express my thanks and appreciations to President Seyfi Tashan of the Foreign Policy Institute in bringing about this meeting today. It is a timely one when the experts group at NATO has presented its Report on the Strategic Concept and when in all allied countries and also in partner countries the topic is being discussed publicly. I think for us to have such a debate is relevant and important. I would like to express my thanks to the Vice Rector as well. I know that Bilkent University is not only the venue for the institute but also contributing intellectually to the work undertaken. I had previously prepared some written remarks. But since this is a much closed society, dealing with such an important issue I thought that it would be better to express my thoughts on this topic dealing with certain items relevant to the strategic concept. If I make stride with the process at NATO during the Strasbourg- Kehl Summit Meeting of 2009, the Heads of State and Government decided to establish an expert group to make its contribution for the preparation of the Strategic Concept. The present Strategic Concept dates back to 1999 and I think time has come to reflect upon the developments that have taken place since then and to give a vision statement for the future. The Experts Group had already presented its report on 17th on May and when I talked with my successor our Permanent Representative to NATO yesterday he told me that they already had a way day being an informal discussion of any issue outside the headquarters with an informal environment provided by the Secretary General. So, they had very useful discussion yesterday and I am sure that they will continue to do so because what the Expert Group had done so for is to bring together all ideas, some of them perhaps out of the box ideas to be thought of in preparing the New Strategic Concept. And we would like to see the permanent Council to be fully involved in the process. On the half of, the capitals to feel sense of ownership if such an opportunity is given now. The text should be of course not too long for the public also to understand what such a vision will be for the future. But I think we should not exaggerate the brevity of the Strategic Concept by making certain analogy that it should be understood by Omaha Milkman because I don’t think that no matter how brief, concise it would be there won’t be an interest by certain segments of the society. But in any case public perceptions are extremely important and we have to eliminate the perceptions of the Cold War.

• Details
• Contents