The Editor of New Era newspaper Chrispin Inambao last week interviewed the Ambassador of Turkey to Namibia, Her Excellency Deniz Çakar, cross-examining her on bilateral ties and the ISIL threat.
Excerpts from the cross-cutting interview.
NE: Namibia’s relations with Turkey could be traced to the 60s when Turkey supported the UN resolutions for Namibia’s independence. What have been some of the highlights of this country-to-country relationship that has its roots from the 60s?
DÇ: “Turkey has always been a supporter of the right to self-determination. In that sense, Turkey and Namibia have a lot in common. Modern Turkey came out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. The difference is Turkey was not colonised but it was under the tentacles of some imperial powers. We had the Balkan war that started in 1911 until 1923. For twelve years the country was in a non-stop war from the (Ottoman) empire and it was a big transition. We understand well what is the struggle for liberation – that is why we have great empathy for Namibia in that sense. In the 1960s Turkey’s economic situation could not be compared to what Turkey has today, it was a country barely managing to carry on in terms of economy, but we had a very strong political will to succeed and it actually happened. In the 1960s was when the issue of Namibia’s right for self-determination arose. At that time Turkey was the only member of the UN Western Group that unconditionally supported Namibia and became one of the founding members of the UN Council for Namibia.”
NE: On the Turkish-Syrian relationship, why have the two countries been mutually hostile to each other for such a long time?
DÇ: “It wouldn’t be right if you say ‘mutually hostile’ to each other. The people of Turkey and Syria have been friends for a very long time. They share long historical and cultural bonds. Yet, the regime in Syria is solely responsible for the current chaos, instability and devastation in Syria. There was a free flow of people and strong border trade between the two countries. Turkey has the longest land border with Syria among all its neighbours. Syria was always – and is – an important neighbour for Turkey. But what has happened today is the current (Bashar) Assad regime in Syria does not take into consideration the will of its people. Today there are one-and-a-half million Syrian people living in Turkey, they escaped from the regime. And there are three million people in total from Syria living in neighbouring countries as refugees. Recently, Turkey received 200 000 refugees over the weekend and an additional 5 000 refugees from Kobani. It is feeding them, sheltering them, giving them school facilities, we don’t know how long this will take and no one knows. In that sense, people-to-people it’s very different. Turkey has been handling this on its own without having international aid, except having the United Nations (UN) agencies facilitating the refugee situation. At the moment we have 1,8 million Syrian people living in Turkey.”
NE: Recently there has been an upsurge of Islamic State (IS) insurgents, when we bring them into the picture are we likely to see an escalation of more hostilities along the Syrian/Turkish border?
DÇ: “The problems of ISIL – which is the Islamic State of Iraqi and Levant – is it didn’t occur in one day. Until two weeks ago nobody spoke about Kobani but now everybody is talking about Kobani. This is highly related to the creation of the vacuum in authority that has occurred in Syria during the last four years when the civil war initially broke out. Since 2011 a lot of people who do not have any purpose in life from Europe and from all over the world seized the opportunity of the existing power vacuum in Syria where Assad has lost control of his country. He is resisting because of some external support from a few countries. Almost half of his countrymen are exiled. And there is a severe power vacuum and these extremists found a life to grow that is how the situation can be described in brief. Turkey of course sees ISIL as a big threat and together with her allies she is taking the necessary precautions, cooperating, communicating and monitoring the situation very closely.”
NE: Which is the lesser evil, Assad or ISIL?
DÇ: “None of them. Any regime that doesn’t respect its citizens, human rights and democracy is destined to go.”
• ISIL is a Sunni, Islamic extremist unrecognised state in Iraqi, Syria and the Middle East. In April 2013, the insurgent group grew significantly under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.