FM Davutoğlu confronts challenges on the diplomatic trail

That is how you feel after signing up for an intensely packed five-day, six-country trip aboard a government-owned Gulfstream IV (G-IV) jet carrying Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and his small team to attend to a series of issues ranging from the Iranian nuclear program to securing reconciliation in fragile Bosnia and Herzegovina, from calming Azerbaijani concerns over Armenian rapprochement to the European Union’s uneasiness about post-election northern Cyprus.

“Years of expertise in knowing how to pack light and travel easy may prove useless if you’re asked to tag along with a man who is widely acknowledged as the architect of the Turkish government’s new foreign policy,” Osman Sert, press adviser to Davutoğlu, explains with a note of caution meant to warn the journalists who will accompany the minister on his trip. In fact it is not unusual for Davutoğlu and the gang to very well find themselves dragged into a situation where the G-IV has to alter its course just because a freshly developing issue vital to the interests of Turkish foreign policy requires urgent attention. All of a sudden, the list of priorities, seemingly well thought out on the ground, may need to be reshuffled and revised midair.

Today’s Zaman traveled with Davutoğlu last week during the longest single trip he has taken since he assumed the post of chief diplomat. The trip, covering six countries in five-day period, came on the heels of another long transatlantic expedition featuring Washington and Brasília, where Davutoğlu had a series of talks on, inter alia, the Iranian nuclear program. His layover at his residence in the Turkish capital did not even amount to a full day’s rest before embarking on a trip from Tehran to Nicosia with frequent stopovers along the way.

“It has become a way of life for us, and we have accepted it as such,” says Ali Sarıkaya, who is a close aide of the minister. He is the man who keeps Davutoğlu in a tip-top shape from a matching tie to a handy briefcase carrying toiletries.

On a flight from Brussels to Tallinn on Wednesday night, Sarıkaya was caught snoozing by Davutoğlu while he was sitting in the back cabin seat, with blanket pulled over his head, as he had apparently made a suggestion a short while earlier that the minister should take a nap because he looked pale and exhausted. “Now I know why you said what you said to me just moments ago,” shouted Davutoğlu jokingly while pulling down the blanket to expose Sarıkaya’s head. “You yourself wanted to get away from me to get some rest,” the foreign minister remarked.

This 51-year-old soft-spoken historian-turned-diplomat amazingly spends three-quarters of the month abroad, mostly shuttling from one place to another, to pursue what seems to be an increasingly multifaceted and complex Turkish foreign policy. Many of his colleagues from academia believe that Davutoğlu’s mindset was mostly shaped by what was described in his 2001 academic book “Strategic Depth,” a manual for reintegrating Turkey into its region after the Cold War. Now he is in the field practicing what was written on the theoretical level, subjected to numerous adjustments over time.

For many critics and supporters alike, he is the man who pushed Turkey to grow into the role of a significant player, not only in its immediate neighborhood in the Middle East and Europe but also in areas ranging from African deserts to the Central Asian plateau. As such, he has been much credited for creating opportunities for Turkey, albeit with challenges popping up along the way.

The first stop on Davutoğlu’s diplomatic trail on Monday the 19th was Baku to brief Azerbaijani President İlham Aliyev on what had happened during the nuclear security summit in the US capital a week before, during which the normalization process with Armenia and the occupation in Nagorno-Karabakh were discussed by the Turkish, American and Armenian heads of government.

As a matter of fact, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had already sent Davutoğlu’s undersecretary, Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioğlu, to Baku as his special envoy before the Washington summit, during which Erdoğan had bilateral talks with Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan as well as with US President Barack Obama while Davutoğlu had talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian.

Nonetheless, the personal visit by Davutoğlu himself to Baku following the summit underscored Ankara’s determination to keep Baku informed regarding every step of Turkey’s normalization process with Armenia.

On the same day, Davutoğlu’s plane flew to Iran, landing in Tehran, where he held marathon 14-hour-long talks with the Iranian leadership in a timeframe of less than 24 hours. He met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday and had talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on three occasions, the last talks continuing until the two foreign ministers separated near the stairs of Davutoğlu’s aircraft so the Turkish minister could board his plane.

Turkey’s top diplomat discussed a range of issues, including the controversial nuclear energy program, with the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. His itinerary also included talks with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.

Davutoğlu seemed relaxed and cheerful when he walked into the VIP lounge at Mehrabad International Airport after wrapping up his talks. That is where Today’s Zaman approached him to see if he had anything to report to the media. “There are concrete proposals on the table,” the Turkish foreign minister said in a brief interview, adding that the Iranian side was very receptive and certain progress had been made. “There are also steps that I will take from now on. I’m very hopeful,” he said before walking away.

Change of course in midair

When the plane was halfway to Belgrade to attend a Tuesday night trilateral meeting of Turkish, Spanish and Serbian foreign ministers designed to deliver the strongest message yet on a common vision for the integration of the Western Balkans into the European system, we were notified by a member of the crew that the meeting in Rome on our itinerary for the next day had been canceled.

Prime Minister Erdoğan had to cancel his one-day trip to Rome in order to be present during the parliamentary vote on crucial amendments to the Constitution. This disrupted Davutoğlu’s itinerary as well because he was planning to join Erdoğan in Rome for an intergovernmental conference. The veteran crew, obviously used to these last minute changes, had already started betting on which destination would be next and what meetings the chief diplomat had started pondering to fill the empty slot in the itinerary.

It turned out that Davutoğlu had already decided on the destination after wrapping up his talks in Tehran, before the news of the cancelation had even arrived. It was revealed that he had been trying to figure out how to squeeze Brussels into an already jam-packed itinerary. Now that the Rome leg of the trip was canceled, he was ready to barge into the EU’s home to brief his counterparts on the progress made in regard to the Iranian nuclear row. “I ordered my staff to find out where [EU foreign policy chief] Ms. Catherine Ashton is currently located,” he told reporters on the plane. It was then that the statement he made back at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport made sense.

The question, of course, was whether the week of chaos was over and whether the airspace was clear as volcanic ash continued to disrupt flights, with thousands of passengers stranded on the ground. Once the flight crew was told the sky was clear and the route was safe, Davutoğlu set the course for Brussels for an early morning flight on Wednesday. “Make sure you are at the lobby at 6:30 a.m. sharp to depart for the airport,” Sert warned the reporters.

Having slept only three hours after writing and dispatching stories until 3 a.m., we were told the flight had been canceled due to inclement weather at just around the time we were due to leave the hotel. Packed already and gears in place, we waited a couple of hours before being given the go-ahead for our plane to fly to Brussels.

Seinfeld fan spokesman

Having Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin sitting across the aisle from you as part of the official crew certainly comes as an added bonus for a reporter. You can always get the inside scoop as well as a clear picture of what is really happening. That helps you frame your story correctly so that you are able to convey a true account of what has happened.

If you are not trying to take a peek at his tablet notebook where he scribbles brief minutes of what was said behind closed doors, you can enjoy his company while talking about old Seinfeld episodes. He is a fan of this US sitcom, which originally aired on NBC from 1989 to 1998, lasting nine seasons. He was serving in the US at the time and followed the episodes closely. If one is a fan of Seinfeld, this is a good time to bond, recalling crazy moments from various episodes throughout the journey.

Burak will be leaving the office of spokesman soon as he was recently appointed to lead the Turkish Embassy in Zagreb as the ambassador. He certainly seems to have developed a professional way of dealing with the press during his tenure. He recalls some of the strangest moments during his time as spokesman, like a reporter calling and asking how many members NATO has. “I am no walking Google,” he said, venting his frustration at the reporter.

Davutoğlu does not sleep much, as his back-to-back meetings last from early morning until late at night. A two to three-hour nap on the plane can keep him going for the rest of the day. The hectic schedule that comes with the job obviously takes its toll on Davutoğlu’s family, especially on younger ones, aged 12 and 10. His wife, Sare Davutoğlu, a doctor by profession, accompanies him on the rare occasions when the opportunity presents itself.

Victory for Bosnia

Departing from Brussels late on Wednesday, we checked into the hotel in Tallinn after clocking four hours flight time to the Estonian capital. Amazingly, it was snowing at Tallinn’s airport when the plane was approaching the runway. Snow was still on the ground in Tallinn two weeks ago when Today’s Zaman interviewed the Estonian president. People were complaining about how harsh the winter was this year, unprecedented in Estonia’s recent history.

While the US pushed for NATO to embrace the American missile defense system planned for Eastern Europe as a core mission of the alliance as well as parrying a push to withdraw its aging nuclear stockpile from Europe, the approval of a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Bosnia and Herzegovina, a precursor to the country’s full membership in the alliance, certainly topped the list of issues on Davutoğlu’s agenda.

In conversations with reporters aboard the plane, he signaled that Turkey could create a deadlock at the summit regarding the status of Bosnia and vowed to wage a persistent campaign to convince skeptical members to vote in favor of Bosnia and Herzegovina. “We have worked too hard to get here and membership will provide added protection to the fragile stability in the Western Balkans,” he said. In the end, he got his wish and the 28-member bloc approved the plan despite opposition from France, Germany and the Netherlands.

En route to Cyprus the next day, the final stop on the tiring journey, Davutoğlu was relaxed and peaceful. He attended the inauguration of newly elected Turkish Cypriot President Derviş Eroğlu on Friday. However, the saga was not over for Davutoğlu yet. He was going back to İstanbul because the last-minute positive development in Belgrade on Tuesday resulted in a snap trilateral summit of the presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey and Serbia. The summit, the first ever, was significant victory for all three after the long-held close consultations and meetings.

As the meeting was scheduled to be held in İstanbul, the plane’s final destination was changed from Ankara to Turkey’s largest city, bridging Asia and the European continent. The intense five-day trip with the workaholic Turkish foreign minister and a packed itinerary was simply too much to take for this reporter.

But fast-growing Turkey, with a multitude of interests in an area spanning from Japan to Latin America, definitely needs more point men like Davutoğlu, men who will keep sharpening their diplomatic skills and will invest their time and intellect to excel in developing modalities for conflict resolution around Turkey’s points of interest on the world map.

Lost passport

As if we needed more excitement, I should also mention how my passport was accidently left at the Esteghlal Hotel reception desk in Iran along with ones belonging to two Turkish diplomats. Gürcan Balık, the minister’s first secretary, who kept the passports on the plane, realized we were missing the three passports after landing in Belgrade.

It turned out that an embassy official who was supposed to pick up our passports while checking out of the hotel in Tehran inadvertently forgot to get them back. Since we were using VIP lounges in both capitals, nobody realized the three passports were missing. As such, I was an illegal alien and undocumented visitor in Serbia. By the way, we found out that Cihad Erginay, a senior political adviser to the minister, whose passport was left behind as well, was better prepared than others. We learned he keeps a back-up passport on him at all times.

While it was unimaginably hurtful to hear our Turkish ambassador to Serbia blaming this reporter for not keeping an eye on his own passport, it was quite a relief that the Serbian ambassador to Turkey, whom I know well from Ankara, rushed to my aid, saying, “I’ll vouch for him.” I squeezed extra hard to keep his business card in my grasp just in case I ran into trouble during the short stay in Belgrade.

Thanks to the Turkish Embassy in Belgrade, I was given a new passport, and with much gratitude to the Spanish embassy there, I received a Schengen visa stamp overnight. That allowed me to keep tagging along with the Turkish foreign minister for the rest of the trip.