 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the World Economic Forum Turkey Summit. We are at the session regional geopolitical challenges, multi-stakeholder response strategies. In the context of the geopolitical challenges posed to the region and the growing threat of non-state actors, how can government, business, and civil society organizations best respond? These are some of the topics we're going to discuss today. And the dimensions we're going to be addressing today are, one, identifying the dynamics and drivers of growing geopolitical risk in our region, adapting to the economic repercussions of regional conflict, and finally, assessing the prospects of a regional solution to the conflict in the Middle East. I have five very prominent guests with me. I'd like to introduce them to you. To my left is Mr. John Hefko. He is the general secretary and CEO of Rotary International. And right next to him is Mr. Ashdeha Rami, Minister of Natural Resources of Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. To his left is Mr. Junete Zapsu, who is the chairman of Junete Zapsu Consulting. To his left, we have Philip Missfelder, CDU, CSU, Foreign Policy Spokesperson in the Bundestag. And to his left is Mr. Efkan Ala, Minister of Interior Affairs of Turkey. Welcome all to the session. We're very happy to have you with us. Mr. Hefko, let me start with you as we're sitting right to my left. We are in a very difficult region. Every day, a crisis is happening. Obviously, you're heading an organization with over millions of members. And you are active in 200 countries. Rotary is very strong as a civil society organization. Let me start with Syria and the conflict in the region. Your previous job was also about distributing foreign aid as part of the US government. So you know conflict areas very well. Can I ask you to draw us a big picture? What's going on in the Middle East? What are some of the areas that you see more problematic? Well, obviously, there are significant challenges in the region as we all know. What I'd like to perhaps focus on, if I could, the moving frame that is from a civil society perspective, the challenges we face, what are some of the problems we face from a particularly global health perspective? We have significant conflicts in Syria, in Iraq, in Ukraine. These conflicts, in my view, are perhaps giving rise to a very significant global health challenge. The issue of refugees, the issue of low vaccination rates in Iraq, Syria, and in Ukraine could lead, if we're not careful, to a serious global health issue. My organization, Rotary National, our global initiative is the eradication of polio. This region has been polio-free for a long time. Ukraine has been polio-free since 1996. However, with the conflicts, there is a serious risk of polio re-emerging. We had 35 cases in Syria last year. Fortunately, we just have one case this year. We have one case in Iraq. Ukraine is in grave danger of having a resurgence of polio. We've already had resurgences of measles, mumps, pertussis, other serious, serious diseases. And so I think, from a global health perspective, conflict in this region, conflict in Ukraine, is giving rise to some very, very serious concerns that we, civil society, government, multilateral institutions, the business community, need to rally around it. Thank you, Mr. Raghun. Children are obviously one of the first targets especially with health crisis. So what Drutry does is very important. I'd like to move to Mr. Harami. You are in northern Iraq, so you are geographically, the proximity is very close to the ISIS threat happening. We know that the Kurds are fighting the ISIS threat, but it's more of an imminent threat for you as well. Can you tell us some of the recent situation going on in your region? What are some of the challenges you're facing and what are some of the expectations you have from the international community? Well, thanks for the invitation. I think we're taking the front or the burden of ISIS aggression actually as a region. So the fight in Iraq, particularly against our region, has been intense. We have something like 1,000 kilometers of frontline with ISIS, which is bigger than any other border actually. The situation is calm now. The initiative is with our Peshmerga. We're taking control back from that initial aggression thanks to international community and the support we receive from our neighbors as well as of course from United States airstrikes. But I think in order to actually address this, one has to understand why ISIS, what is this phenomenon? It just didn't just emerge without analyzing the reasons for it. You cannot beat it. ISIS was created as a result of failures of failed states in Syria and Iraq actually. In a sense, the lack of, or this enchanted communities in Iraq and Syria created fertile ground for extremism to mature, compounded with that. They put their hands on a lot of modern weapons, which Iraqi army just ran away and surrendered to them. That is why ISIS has become bigger than perhaps initially like ordinary terrorist group. And really when you look back to that, it happened after Americans pulled out of Iraq. In our view, it's a little bit prematurely. Iraq, yes, was equipped. The army was not fully mature to represent all Iraqis. So I became essentially sectarian army, only serving one part of the community against other communities. And that fed more to the extremism. So essentially despite billions of dollars spent on Iraqi army, Iraqi army was just like pack of cars collapsed and surrendered that resource to the hands of these terrorists, which they come from different parts of the globe. In order to have an army can fight, it needs to actually have the back in its own people, not just one sector of the people. And the failures in Iraq particularly, I'm sure there are problems in Syria. When people see sectarianism as being the basis of running the state, then the community party in this case like Sinni's, despite the bad things that ISIS brought with them, they were still seen to be better than the guy in Baghdad. And that is basically why the sectarianism and fed into this fertile ground actually to see the, I hope it's not mine. No. It's not yours, it's okay. So in order to actually beat ISIS, in our view there are three parameters here. There's military, economic and political. You got to work on all the fronts. Militarily, the terrorism doesn't have boundary. So therefore you can only beat him by not focusing on boundaries between Iraq and Syria. Say, I will fight in Iraq, but I don't fight in Syria. That is just different than the problem they come back. So you got to really have a strategy for the region. I was very pleased to hear that from President Ordovan that we got to be looking at Iraq, Syria as a package in order to actually solve this problem permanently. So that's on the military side. Yes, air strikes have been effective, but air strikes do not actually boot out all these people from homes and streets. So you need boots on the ground. How do you do that? You need to have strong cooperation locally. Our country managers are ready for that. Iraqi army hopefully will be partially ready for that. But you also need the international community. And I think Turkish role is crucial in this case as a geopolitical power to come in coordinate with international, let's say, sponsors, providers to actually make sure that we have a minute effective military action against this group both in Iraq as well as in Syria. And of course, without economic backing, organizations like that cannot continue. So they have some access to funds, needs to be cut out. And now actually within Syria and Iraq, they also have access to some oil. In Iraq, there are one, two fields that are in their hands in Hamrin and Ajid. In Syria, one, two, three fields are actually in the Sinai areas that are in their hands. So what we have to do then is actually make sure that oil does not get to the market and they cannot monetize it. And it's hard when you have 1,000 kilometers this way, 1,000 kilometers that way. So you need a coordination on the intelligence and on actually determination to actually beat that. In Kurdistan, we've been fighting hard on that. We actually have set up a security and from the energy cooperation on that. I'm going to ask you about that actually in the second round to more details because I think there's an interesting story there. Let me move to Mr. Zapsu. Mr. Zapsu, the Turkish government has long been saying, has been warning about the Maliki administration and was saying that the Sunnis in Iraq were being isolated for a long time. They also called for international action on Syria for a long time. That came very late. So do you feel sometimes that the international community was very late to intervene in this region? How do you take that garden? How did these things come to the point they did? I'm not a politician anymore. I'm a businessman. I can be a bit blunter than anybody else here. And I feel quite sick when I hear the whole issue just about the so-called Islamic Caliphate or other spritzer groups. It has much bigger roots, the whole issue here. And when I listen to the discussion with ISIS and hear, oh, we have to kill the leaders and whatever, I think, hey, I mean, nobody learns anything, I think, because if we just kill the leaders and then they think it's done, another bad guy will come because that's not the problem. It has much bigger roots. It has much bigger roots. Of course, the Turkish, you asked about the, about Turkey's alone, left alone struggle in Syria. You cannot only go against ISIS. ISIS just is coming up from the not accepting, not understanding of the Arab Spring. The MENA region, population for the first time in centuries in history, actually, just voted democratically, thought, okay, these are freedoms and stuff. And then, you know what happened? The West, the so-called West, didn't understand what's going on. They didn't understand that, for an example, the Ichban could suppress these spritzer groups like ISIS, like others. And I always told my business friends, hey, the next step is not the liberals, the next steps are the Salafis. And so it came out. And therefore, I think, I think, everybody should understand, we have to look at this as, where are the roots? Okay, what happens if we get rid of ISIS? What happens with the Bashar? What about, do we have Syria issue solved if we get rid of ISIS? Don't we have to get rid also of the bloody dictatorship? And what about after Syria? Is that it, I believe everybody should think, where is the root of the story? And we have to, we have to come up. It is the Palestine issue. I'm going to go into that in the following rounds as well. Let me turn to Mr. Ms. Felder. I want to take the European angle in all of this. Obviously, the ISIS threat is going to have spillover effects in Europe. There are a lot of ISIS fighters with European passports and there's an increasing concern in Europe that they would go back and travel freely within the European continent, which will bring with it a hard time for the Muslims living in Europe because most of the Muslims live in Europe face being profiled as possible militants. So are you concerned at all about any spillover effects one and second, any racial profiling on the Muslims? Like would the Muslims have a democratically okay life in Europe? I don't know how it is in other countries. Of course, in other European countries, I can speak for Germany. It is, I'm of course concerned when I see the debate in the UK about migration, for example, or in France. In Germany, we haven't had these in the quite, not in the last few months. That might change, but thanks to the Turkish authorities and thanks to the Kurds, we got a lot of help to protect ourselves in the last couple of weeks. You might have read it, there was a plot planned by German passport holders coming back from a dash, ISIS planning something against the European Commission. There was another plot last week, which was prohibited thanks to the cooperation with the Kurdish Secret Service, which the Turkish authorities, and I think this is something where we have to be very careful in telling the public everything about these things and on the press, but me and other parliamentarians, we asked the head of the German security services that they should tell the public about the cooperation because right now you see many rumors and many negative reports about the role of Turkey, and I appreciate very much what President Erdogan said yesterday, and the truth as well is, and Dr. Ashti, you might agree, without the good cooperation among the Kurdish regional government and Erdogan's people here in Ankara and Istanbul, Kurdistan would have been blown up long time ago, so I believe this cooperation is vital and this is something Germany and especially the European Union should support more. Thank you. This is the way we stand. I'm going to ask you to take to us the big picture. We talk about Etaide, we talk about ISIS, we talk about Etaide and we talk about ISIS, and we usually say that these are the militants that usually find themselves in Arab prisons. I mean, these organizations weren't created overnight. Turkey has been talking about the isolation of Sunnis in the Maliki government. Turkey has been asking for some action in Syria and now we see that there's related action. Where do you see where we stand? Well, today, the situation we see is no surprise for people who have been following the developments. In the second half of the previous century and especially in the past quarter of the previous century, we have had a communication revolution. We see a phenomenon that's generally called globalization. However, this has some results, some outputs and I think that the world at large isn't really analyzing these results in as much detail as it should. There are significant technological developments and we have not yet created a civilization framework for these developments. Look at these regions. There are examples from different regions. There are specific examples from throughout the world. But here we are focusing specifically on the Middle East. Let's look at the Middle East. We have some close regimes there and thanks to the communication evolution, the young people now have direct access to developments around the world. These authoritarian or despotic regimes are unable to create political or economic answers to the political and economic demands of the young people. So in these countries, the population is also increasing because in compared to other sectors, the developments in the health sector reach these countries more than they do in other sectors. For example, in all of these countries, we see that the life expectancy is increasing in almost all of these countries. So all of these factors come together to create a young population that's increasing in number almost on a daily basis. They have specific political objections and political demands. They are learning more and more about the world. They learn about the world in greater detail. They have new demands and these regimes no longer meet the demands of the young people and these regimes are despotic authoritarian regimes. And many young people feel that it's the developed world that supports these authoritarian regimes. The young people feel that the people that live in these countries do not support these regimes. So the young people assume that it's the big powers. It's the big countries, the developed countries that support these authoritarian regimes. I am making this as a general comment. I'm not going to go into specific countries. Because of this perception, there is serious reaction against developed countries as well as against the authoritarian regimes in these countries. However, there are conventional arms and there are large projects in these countries. However, these reactions grow stronger and stronger and these young people try to find solutions. The developing or underdeveloped countries in the region have problems about terrorism. They have an environment where many people overreact or where people have extreme reactions. So the people end up manifesting their reactions. They do their best to express their objections. And of course, everybody has access to the internet. Everyone has TVs. Everyone has mobile phones. So many cultures are interacting with each other. In the Western world, we see excessive individualization. And this excessive individualization causes people to be, I don't know, somewhat more egocentric or they are indifferent to other policies around the world. In other words, they don't necessarily think about what the repercussions of their steps may be. So when the young people in the region look at the Western world, that is the kind of cultural atmosphere that they see. Obviously, you always have exceptions to the rule. I'm making some general comments here. So we are talking about, in a way, a clash of civilizations. In the Western world, nothing is sacred. But in the Eastern world, what is not sacred is not valuable. So that's part of the problem too. So these young people want to find a solution to their problems. So Arab Spring was, in fact, the peak of these developments. We saw a wave that grew larger and larger. And if we had been able to use this wave to create a democratic structure in these countries, then we would not have had these terrorism problems. Terrorism is a threat against all of us, including the Western world. So Western regimes or strong countries, I think, were hesitant to take the initiative. They were quite late in correctly interpreting the developments in the region. So unfortunately, if we adapt a conformist approach, we can say that maybe the whole world will not be on fire. But I think that we will all see the results of the fire. The world is shrinking, but the problems are not shrinking. The problems in one country have repercussions that affect even the remotest countries around the world. So you see the developments around the world. These young people get organized, they want to express their reactions. This is not sustainable at this day and age. Each period, each era creates its own regime, creates its own social structure. So in these post-industrial countries, democracy is not an option, it's not an alternative, but it's absolutely mandatory. It's a must. There are people who interact with life on a daily basis, people who are part of the society. And these people need to be presented with solutions created by the system. Unless you find a solution, then this will translate into a problem for the society. So this is the root of the problems that we see around this region. I don't want to take much of your time, but there are solutions. The solutions are quite obvious to all, but I'm worried that we're going to run late. We will be elaborating on the possible solutions. National has been very active in conflict resolution as well. Conflict resolution and peace are one of the pillars of Rotary. When we look at the region, it's not just Iraq and Syria, you also look at Palestine. There was recently a war where over 100 United Nations schools and hospitals were damaged and over 2,000 Palestinians died, or which 500 were children. This region, there is also obviously growing crisis in Ukraine and Russia. So the region is as unstable as ever. Do you think the international community is doing its share? I mean, there are state actors and non-state actors, but what could be done on a concrete level to bring some stability, if not a resolution of the conflicts and management of the conflicts? Again, as I mentioned by earlier intervention, we do have, in this area in Ukraine, really a significant... Secondly, how do we deal with the challenges that this region, Ukraine, faced? And how do we address some of the issues that the minister just outlined? Youth, clash of civilizations, as he called it. Seems to me that the ultimate solution has to be multi-sectoral, multi-stakeholder solution. Here I think civil society can play an extremely important role in addressing some of the challenges, the long-term challenges that we face. Obviously civil society can't address the geopolitical, the military issues in the face, but certainly in the long-term, some of the social issues. What does civil society bring to the table? It brings, first of all, advocacy, a voice for those that are not able to express their voice. It provides a collective voice to society, for society to express its concerns. It acts as a watchdog. A watchdog keeps government honest, keeps business honest. Again, acts as a watchdog. Third, it takes action. It takes significant action, very often bridges the gap between what government can offer and what society needs. At an earlier panel yesterday, a considerable discussion about trust. What institutions in society have the most trust? Number one, civil society. The lowest by far was government, media was not far behind soon, unfortunately. So I think civil society can play an incredibly important role in addressing some of these challenges. Take my organization, Rotary International. Part of the solution to dealing with the issues the minister raised is to break down barriers between people. So we, for example, run a huge student exchange program. We send 9,000 students around the world for different countries to spend a year studying and living in another culture. People interact in that way. You break down some of these barriers. You break down some of the cultural barriers and you lead to long-term understanding. I just want to inform the audience. Maybe they're not aware of it, but Mr. Hefkos, one of his earlier roles has been the vice president in the Millennium Project, which was a project by the Bush administration. He was responsible for distributing eight up to $6.3 billion over the course of five years. So he took an active role in the distribution of his eight. So when you look at especially these conflict areas, do you think enough aid is coming in? I mean, Turkey's sitting with a million and a half refugees at this border, but you were very active in distributing eight. So do you think enough is coming? I don't think enough is coming in. I think in general, we need to rethink, the world needs to rethink, the way in which foreign assistance and development assistance is given to countries. Very often, the assistance is given for the wrong reasons. We need development assistance, in my view, one to deal with the humanitarian immediate crises that arise, but more fundamentally, to use development assistance to lay the groundwork for thriving, prosperous economies. Thriving countries tend not to have the problems that the minister was alluding to, to urge. I think, and I would urge the world, we need a significant rethink in the way in which foreign assistance is developed, organized and implemented around the world, targeted toward laying the groundwork for prosperous, market-driven solutions, sustainable jobs, economies that work. Mr. Harami, let me move on to you. Financial Times recently published an article saying that ISIS had daily earnings up to $5 million. It was a number between $3 to $5 million, and that now they are able to produce 500 barrels of oil a day. It was no surprise that U.S. targeted oil refineries in the region. Let's get the situation in the ground for me. First of all, did the airstrikes help, especially the strikes on some of the ISIS threats, but also on the refineries? And second, what is their revenue situation? Are they continuing to get that money? Well, let me just address the basic issue in Kurdistan and then how that fits into the overall picture. Within the region, we face three huge crises. One, of course, the fight against ISIS, the military. And we've got to sustain that. These people have not been fully beaten. They are there. They've got a lot of support. They are still fighting with us. Second, we have a flood of refugees, which is unparalleled in the world. I mean, yesterday, we heard from President Othman how difficult has been for Turkey to cope in one and a half million refugees in your country. And that is a huge state with 70, 80 million population. We are only 5 million population. We have 1.5, 1.6 million refugees. Some 250, 300,000 are from Syria. Some are from the local areas, like Yazidis, the minority religions, Christians, Shabaks, and all of those. Some are Arabs who have been displaced by right away from ISIS. These people, for example, in Doha, we have border in Turkey. Population of the Haqrafli is about a million people. We have about 800,000 refugees in the cities. It's actually small and double, overnight double size. We have 600 schools, or 600, what the number is, 1,000 or something, schools. Some 90% of those are occupied by the refugees. So actually, the infrastructure is destroyed. Our people now, children, cannot go back to school. We have a lot of energy issues, a lot of financial crisis. And on top of that, we've been punished by our own government, two ways. One, they look at refugee crisis in Kurdistan, as if it is another country. We don't get in any hell from back then. People don't look at it. It's just, oh, if there's a Kurdish problem, they can cope with it. Secondly, as a good measure for punishment, they cut our budget from beginning of year till now. So we, on one hand, we have Peshmerga fighting on the front, I can't pay their wages, and we're still looking at July service, not being paid. How can you motivate the guys who has to fight on the front line? We have our own government, despite actually changing the government and still thinking about sending us money. How can you actually sustain this punishment in Kurdistan to actually, these are the crisis. So we have to manage these big, big crisis, and ISIS come back to it, I mentioned earlier, one leg of their strength is economic. We have to destroy that. And of course, access to oil creates revenue. They have nothing in Kurdistan under their control. They have under their control in any area when two fields are referred to and in Syria. I'm glad that Americans and others with airstrikes hit in topping plans, infrastructure to deprive them from that. But that is not enough. You need some intelligence security on the ground so everybody's aware to stop. For example, yesterday I was delighted I had a call from my minister of interior office. We caught yet again another four tankers crossing the border towards Kirkuk. We got those, and there were seven drivers there. They were all from Ramadi, Mosul, and we were transporting this crew. And we caught them. They are actually now in the hands of security forces. A week ago, we had 12 tankers. So we're doing our best to do that, but we can't do it alone without intelligence because we supposed to get the intelligence when he moves from the field. We got 500 kilometers, let's catch him there before you arrive at our border. And likewise, it's not just our border is open, the border too, all the other neighbors is open. Whether those two are in Syria, towers Jordan, towers Turkey, we got to all gather information to actually destroy this. And we are determined as a region not to allow, we don't need ISIS oil. We have plenty of it. Thank you very much. It is a headache for us. We don't allow it. And I actually say here as a minister, if anyone give me intelligence, a single topping plan or a single tanker crossing the border from Iraq, Australia to our region, bringing the information, see how we deal with it. So a cheap propaganda or information about this particular report are to be a respectable newspaper. But actually when you read it, it's just a story. It doesn't have information about who said it. Where did you get the information? Show me a picture, give me some information about the tanker so I can actually go and prosecute these people and catch them. So our reporter needs to under the sensitive information, provide genuine information. So we can actually all benefit from it. But I say again, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. For sure it is, when you have oil, it's always an opportunity for somebody to make money. And if you are a terrorist, it's even the best thing you should try. But therefore the intelligence gathering between Turkey, people engaging in Kurdistan now fighting ISIS, Americans and European allies, give us the information, let us give you the information. So just as we chasing the tanker, moving towards Kurdistan and they hit it, let us also find a supplier of crude or product whatever, moving towards any border, hit it there so that when you actually got rid of few of them, basically people would be in the test to carry out this. You seem very confident of your stance there and very transparent. Let me move on to Mr. Zapsu. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gave a briefing in Pentagon and when you looked at the context of the briefing, the possibility of a North fly zone or a buffer zone as we expect in Turkey was not in part of the works there. The situation at the border is getting really dangerous and obviously the North fly zone would help. What do you think is deterring US? Do you think the US is reluctant because a North fly zone would mean that they have to take down Assad's air defense system? Is that what they don't want to get involved in? What is making them hesitant there? Okay, I don't like conspiracy stories, but there are a few US because you said just, what do you think US? There's so many different US's and I believe that the administration right now is back to their senses and they understand what's really going on there and that you cannot go like the British just said just in Iraq against ISIS or you cannot go only against ISIS actually as far as I tried to explain, there are three main issues right now which has to be solved. This is Syria, this is the story between Baghdad and Erbil. It has to be solved, it can't go like that. Back the minister just said, I mean you cannot act totally ignorant on one side and then say no to the other side, to the financial issues and in Syria as I said, it's not only ISIS or other groups, al-Qaeda's or whatever's, there has to be chosen government again in Syria but that's not all, I tried to explain there's another issue which is the in phrase could be mother of the stories and this is Palestine, for God's sake. How can it be that a single western life, cut the throat thing can be, has more importance, more value than thousands, thousands of children dying for years? Nobody did care for nothing. Right now, okay people are talking about ISIS. It's not it, these things, I mean, in my point of view, I'm just a little businessman, I'm not a big politician but hey, we have to tackle the Palestinian issue and it's not Palestine, it's not Hamas, it is Israel itself who can solve it, only Israel. Three questions they have to understand, I mean the leadership of Israel. Are we a Jewish state? Are we a democratic state? Do we wanna retrieve from the West Bank? You cannot have all three because if you're a Jewish state, you cannot get the West Bank because then you're an apartheid. So this has, that's the whole package. Today, when you just, okay, polio this, that, hey, a dead people, they don't need eight, they are dead, they don't need any medication or something. People are dying right now. And what you do right now with bombing and this and that, that's just, you know, putting some, maybe some drops of a decolon. I don't wanna go too much into that but I believe that people do understand what I tried to say. And the US, the administration at least, as I said, there are a lot of different faces of the US. The administration, in the end, they've come to the senses, they do really know. By the way, we're not talking about a buffer zone. We're talking about, of course, our minister will tell you much more what we're talking about but what I understand it's not a buffer zone, it's a no fly zone. And we need that. We have one and a half million people here and I don't wanna know as a businessman, as a Turkish taxpayer, how much we're paying. I really don't wanna know because otherwise I would have some ethical questions myself but I would like to know what the others are helping. What the US or the West is helping in this situation with this one and a half million. Thank you, Mrs. Afzal. I'm gonna move on to Mr. Ms. Felder. I was planning to talk more about ISIS but the time is limited so I also wanted to bring as part of our agenda, Ukraine into the table as well. Obviously there's a growing crisis there in Ukraine. It's more of a face-off between NATO and Russia, it seems. When you look at it from Russian perspective the Russians would tell you that NATO provoked them and that Crimea was, could have been the next naval base of NATO. There are people in Russia, there was a foreign policy article about this as well. They felt intimidated that NATO was going into the borders of Russia. When you ask the Europeans, they say, oh, Russia is a big threat, Eastern Europe is on threat. So both sides have their sides to the argument. How do you see, I mean, Germany sits at the leadership of Europe, they're like the engine of growth for Europe. How do you see when you look at it from both sides? Yeah, first of all you always have to consider that Germany by far is the strongest country in the European Union on economic terms but not necessarily on the foreign policy agenda because we are not nuclear power, we are not part of the United Nations Security Council and the truth is as well that most of the Germans would prefer to be like Switzerland than to be engaged. And this is, you can ask the people on the street how they feel about this issue. They are still suffering from the Afghanistan mission and for sure they don't want to become part of a conflict in Syria and of course not with Russia because this is extremely, it's deep in our society. We don't want to have these direct confrontation with Russia, not among NATO and Russia but unfortunately you see that a lot of irrational developments during the past 12 months has happened which were surprising because I think even President Putin would have never expected that this conflict between the West and Russia is going so far. He wanted to show that Russia has changed, that Russia is an open minded country, they invested so much money in Sochi, they released Hodor Kovsky, they wanted to be seen as a friendly country and that has failed completely and on both sides. There's a lot of irrationality on both sides. Do you think the sanctions on the oligarchs would work? That's a new strategy, they've never done that. I don't think that the oligarchs have any kind of power in Moscow. It's Putin that calls the shots. Pardon? It's Putin that calls the shots. No, it's not only Putin, you might know that there are another people, there's a group around Putin and many powerful people in this country. I don't think that we should try to escalate the situation. I think we should try to find a strategic approach. Maybe we have made progress on Friday evening among the European Commission negotiations with Ukraine and Russia on the gas deal. If this is going to work, maybe gas should be that not the reason for next conflict, maybe gas is the trigger for a political solution because everything which was negotiated among President Poroshenko and President Putin so far was not as successful as all of us hoped, but the gas issue is becoming, my point of view, could become a trigger for better development and then we should try to find also a solution which is sustainable on the political side. Thank you. Sainz-Bakant, in a burger, don't make it. Coming back to the region, Distinguished Minister, in the European press from time to time, European countries, when they received 300 refugees, they have big headlines. We accepted these many refugees. Well, look at Turkey. We at present have already received, welcomed, one and a half million, maybe more than one and a half million refugees and they are welcome and received in refugee camps with great conditions. Turkey has a demand. Turkey would like to have a no-fly zone. So what do we as Turkey expect from the international community? With your permission. We had expectations. We will, we are having expectations and we will have expectations. What was one of the expectations? As I mentioned, as a continuum to what I said, the Assad regime killed 250,000 people. Millions of people are affected, injured and they don't have any possibility to be cured, treated. We should have intervened from the very beginning. This was not the case. And under these circumstances, in this environment, well, the reasoning doesn't change the consequences. Well, terrorist organizations appeared which resort to terrorism as a method. We are condemning here the state terror of Assad and also the terrorist organizations which emerged in Iraq as a result of the oppressive regime of Maliki. All these came together and we are experiencing a humanitarian tragedy. Well, at this stage, we are expecting the following intervention. Now that we have this situation, we have to establish an off-line zone in the southern border of Turkey which will be a secure zone because at present we have more than one and a half million refugees and we don't, we didn't receive any international aid. We have spent up till now 400 million, more than 400 billion US dollars. Last week, in seven days, we received more than 150,000 more refugees which is the population of a town. International organizations don't contribute. You spend four billion US dollars. The United Nations contributed 150 million US dollars a total of 240 million US dollars of international aid out of four billion US dollars of expenses incurred by Turkey. There are certain military issues which need to be discussed. Of course, take, whether to take or not to take initiative, et cetera. What is the obstacle to developed countries in providing and extending aid? Why don't they take initiative in extending aid, international aid? So these hesitations just create even further frustrations in the eyes of people. What we want here is without further delay that the world act together, the United Nations under the auspices of the United Nations, international aid can be extended to those refugees seeking refuge in foreign countries. A mechanism has to be set for such international aid to be extended to refugees. What else can be done? These people, the refugees are living in these areas and we have to assume political attitude which could be welcomed by these people, an attitude against Assad, for example. Well, these 1.5 million refugees have fled into Turkey from Syria and they share the same religion. Even other refugees, these people all suffer. If you do not take their frustrations, I'm afraid we will see further terrorist organizations and individual terrorists will be replacing organized terrorist crimes. I'm quite concerned about this possibility. So why do I say that? Well, there are many people, warriors joining. Oshid, the, excuse me, ISIL. Around 150 countries, the citizens of around 150 countries provided warriors, militants to ISIL. And we have introduced a ban for the travel of more than 1,000 people. And around 1,000 people were also deported from Turkey. Well, where do we head? We have to see it. Developed countries, rich countries, political blocks are heading a certain destination, but what about the rest? We have to consider the rest of the world if we want to establish universal peace. If we seek universal peace, because no politics would be useful, let alone promoting democracy or maximizing profits, et cetera. Well, we are seeking a minimum universal peace. What, how to realize? By ensuring internal peace in individuals, you can establish universal peace. That is why we are seeking justice. Why are we just keep watching what is going on in Gaza? Well, is it a problem which cannot be solved by humanity as a whole? Okay, the Assad regime is a despotic regime. 250,000 people were killed. Can't we take initiative against this? Is it a huge problem and like a natural disaster which we cannot tackle? What is this that we cannot act? So, very easily, when we become reasonable and when we take political initiative in line with humanity, well, these problems, since we don't do that, such problems which cannot be resolved very easily in the beginning become huge problems where we devise military action. So, specifically to your question, let me underline my answer. Thank you. We need to take immediate action. We need to specifically focus on the border between Turkey and Syria. So, we must establish a no-slide zone within the Syrian border. Of course, you need to have the right definition as to what it should involve. The coalition should take the initiative to solve this human crisis. Thank you, Mr. Minister. And the format we follow here, I'll now open the floor to questions. If any member of our audience has any questions to our speakers, let me start with the lady over there. Please state your name and the organization you belong as well. Humayla Pamuk, Reuters Sabir Ajans, I can ask in English. Yes. My question is to the minister, though. Uzman Tukçab, we don't. Tukçab, sorry. All right. Sir, would you please clarify some of the numbers you quoted? You quoted some numbers about ISIS. Are these the, you talked about 100, 1,010 people from 73 companies who were deported, who were expatriated? What's the timeline for that? Were these people specifically ISIS-related people or were they people involved in terrorism in general? That's my first question. Let me move on to my second question. The tanks are ready and set to go on the Turkish border. And over the weekend, Kurds in Turkey went to Kobani. 1,500 Kurdish fighters went to Kobani based on some information in the media. Do you know exactly the number? Let me start with your second question. That information is not correct. If you know about this region, you will know that there's a railway between Kobani and Suluç. There is merely a bridge between the two towns. I correct myself, says the minister. There is a border there. These two towns are very close to each other. It's impossible for these people to go to Kobani. No, that's not at all the case. Let's say I said 73 countries, 1,010 people. These are foreign fighters in Syria. There are people who have come to the Turkish border and we sent them back to their own countries. We repatriated them. We worked in cooperation with people. Turkey also put a travel ban on 6,615 people from 81 countries. These are individuals who have not come to Turkey yet, but should they attempt to do so, they will not be taken into our borders. In our region, we've had some recent developments in Syria. We had ISIS, and before then we had Nusra. So these are the figures I cited, the figures pertaining to the past year. Before then there weren't any cases of foreign fighters going to the region. No. So the figure I give is since we've had foreign fighters going into the region, I can't give you a specific date, but I will say this is a total number. I have a question to Mr. Minister. Yesterday Mr. President said that four and a half billion dollars have been spent. And you yourself said that 150 million was the figure that was given in the form of aid. Yes, that's the UN figure. Right, the UN figure. Now here's what I don't understand. The Western countries are not helping at all. How about Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or the UAE, Dubai, Malaysia? How about these countries? They are countries that have significant resources. How come these countries are not offering any aid? I ask my second question as a citizen of Turkey. Morally it's correct to open our doors to these people. However, at least some of these people pose a security problem. In Karaköy, we've seen these poor, poor people out in the streets. They're begging for food. They're trying to wipe car windows. And some of them are engaged in what I may call unpleasant incidences. So how do you see this problem from an internal security problem? What are the internal security-related measures that were taken? The UN gave $160 million. And the number is up to what? The total number is up to $244 million. So the difference of $80 million comes from Saudi Arabia and a number of Arab countries. I don't want to give you a breakdown of all the countries. So there is some form of aid. However, this is not significant aid. This aid is far from significant. Sometimes international organizations representatives come to Turkey and they say, can we take 500 people? Can we take 1,000 people? Can we take 30 people? That's not the way to approach this issue. This is not the correct attitude. You can't take such a significant issue so lightly. So let me restate this back to this platform. Let's turn into security. Let's turn back to security issues. We think about these issues from the perspective of a social capacity. Let's accept the fact that we have a historical responsibility and the Turkish people are aware of this too. And under other circumstances, no country would have taken so many people. And Turkey is not a country where the per capita income is $50,000. No, it's only $11,000. And Turkey has accepted so many people and is offering them the best opportunities it can. Turkey has a historical background about this issue and Turkey is conscientious from a historical and cultural perspective. Such concerns may be irrelevant for certain countries, but they are definitely very relevant for Turkey. So let me make a specific comment in response to your question. Statistics show that our guests from Syria are hardly involved in any crime. Their crime rates are very low at this point. However, this does not guarantee anything for the future. Of course, we are doing some work on this, but as you yourself are able to observe, although there may be some unpleasant incidences, when you look at one and a half million people in total and when you look at the crime rates throughout the country, we see that there is no reason to worry at this point. In other words, the crime rate among these people is lower than the crime rate in the general public. Thank you, Mr. Minister. So you're saying we will act as hospitable Turks? Yes, I am saying that. However, I am saying that developed countries should act as developed countries. I'm making an official call to these countries. My name is Sharif Al-Ramilawi from Egypt. As we talk about the civil society, actually, we are all aiming to keep them in good conditions, and other revolutions came from the civil society, and also some of the problems, like extremists, terrorism, and so on, also came from the civil society. So I'm asking now the panelists. I mean, we have politicians, we have parliamentarians, we have businessmen. So what, in your opinion, could be done from your side to support the civil society represented in NGOs and other organizations to play their real role as the gap between the civil society and the governments in our area is really huge. So we need organizations to translate the ideas, the needs of the civil society to the governments so things could go on. I'll direct that question to Mr. Hefko, since he's the Secretary-General of Rotary International. Just a clarification of terms. I'm not sure any extremism comes from civil society. Maybe from non-state actors we get a lot of extremism, but how do you define civil society just to develop on that question? And do you think extremism comes from that? Civil society, as I mentioned earlier, takes a number of forms and is active in a number of different spaces. The civil society that advocates for a particular issue, there's civil society that actually takes direct action, offers social services and benefits to society. But yes, I do think in this region, the gap is quite large and I think it's imperative on the, and I would turn to the panelists that are in government, that it's absolutely imperative for governments to create the conditions to allow civil society to prosper, because in many ways the state of civil society is a barometer on issues such as freedom of association, freedom of expression. And if civil society is being obviously oppressed and not able to flourish, then obviously it's a symbol of what's not happening well in society. But again, what we need is a multi-stakeholder solution to many of these problems, long-term problems. And to the gentleman's question, civil society needs and has to play an incredibly important role. But that gap is huge in this part of the world. It needs to be shortened. And I would turn to perhaps the minister to give his thoughts on what can government do to shrink that gap. Wait on the top. Well, of course, a civil society needs an open society. In other words, you need to have an open society, a democratic regime in order to have a civil society. If you have an anti-democratic authoritarian regime, you can't really have civil society in the real sense of the world. Such an organization would not be a civil society organization. Such a society would simply be another organization that tries to get its point across to the state. So let's be clear about that. You need to have the right environment to have civil society. States? Or let me put it this way. It's important that states and civil society work together in overcoming some of the challenges that we're faced with. It's vital to have such cooperation. However, there are some civil society organizations that become sectors in their own in some very developed countries. In other words, civil society organizations start getting engaged in PR activities more than in aid activities. That's another problem. Then we have extremism and marginalization. There may be cases of marginalization. The success of democratic societies rests in keeping marginals as extremist organizations. They need to keep these individuals from becoming terrorist organizations. If a society or if a state is able to keep these ideas as marginal ideas rather than as destructive ideas, then that's a sign of success. Because if you can't keep these marginal ideas as marginal ideas only, then these organizations may end up using terrorism. Democratic societies mean that there's less support for support. So, very extreme ideas are unable to find social support. So, they no longer become terrorist organizations. I'm not saying that there are no exceptions to the rule. But generally speaking, this is the kind of structure we seem to be seeing. Late now, although there are a lot of people who don't have a microphone. Can I have a microphone to them at all? Thank you very much. My name is Maitab Tari. I'm an independent legal advisor for some governments. Actually, I would like to ask a question in general to this distinguished panel. I think what is missing personally, what is missing in that international public law to intervene? To get different powers together and to propose some solutions. As His Excellency Mr. Harami mentioned, like Kurdistan regional government feels alone because the problem he's having with the central government of Iraq cannot be solved in the international area. Whereas in the international area there is a proposal to help the governments like Kurdistan regional governments. So I'd like to know what are the efforts that they are preparing, or are they preparing anything, and a new solutions for the international public law to support these governments actually, regional or central governments. And secondly, I would like to know also how we distinguish where we say the intervention must be more than Iraq but also Syria. How we decide in Syria to who support? I mean, even we don't like Assad, this is the regime which is on standing there still, and there's no discipline between the oppositions. So how do we support this two parties? Thank you. Because of limitation of time, I'm going to divert your first question about the lack of legal structure there to Mr. Ms. Falder developing on that, you look at EU, you've just said it, it's not even a common force as a foreign policy. NATO doesn't seem to be much, we see in Ukraine, they're left in their own. As Europe they cannot do anything, there's not a European peace force that we see in Middle East, so rightly so what she points out is what are some of the legal frameworks that could be done. The second part of your question to Mr. Harami, who do we know what to support? Who to support in Syria? How do we differentiate that? It's a very complex situation. Please go ahead. I'm happy that Dr. Ashti gets the second question. You have the geographical advantage in that. Yes, always. I guess the legal framework is not so bad, because for one example, if we're talking about Kurdistan, there is a right of self-determination for the people. But it's a problem of just in case if President Masoud Bazani would call for a referendum, there would be a legal way to protect their rights. The question is who is guaranteeing who gives the guarantee today in our times that this law is forced to be in place? Is it America any longer? I doubt it, because America right now is doing, from my point of view, a mistake because they are carrying this dead body of the one Iraq policy still and are convinced that this is the right way. I'm not. But Turkey is a regional power who is in the lead and which I said at the beginning protected Kurdistan and helped them a lot. But are we backing Turkey enough from the European perspective? We just discussed it earlier before the session begin. It's a question of the geopolitical need for Europe to solve the problems in the relations among the European Union and Turkey because if we don't have this topic solved, we cannot play this role, this active role in the Middle East, what we should do. Mr. Habrami, just to reiterate on the question, if we support a fight against ISIS, are we making Nusra stronger or are we making Assad regime stronger? How do we know who to support who to fight and when to do it? I would like I used to treat myself as a technocrat. I'm sitting at the most politicized history. I warned his advisors before so he knew he was coming into the scandal. I think we got to understand where the core of the issues in these two countries at least is the fundamental thing wrong with the foreign policy or policies of the international community might be the United States, some European country and so on. Is this so called one Iraq policy one Syria policy? If you look at those two countries, the very core of the problem is because you cannot have one policy. You have diverse societies in both countries both religiously ethnic as well as all the diversities are there. Of course the situation is if you go back five years ten years, you could see that go Kurd, you go Sunni, you go Shia, you go Christian and so on. Now it got complicated by terrorism as well. International terrorism. So in Iraq, the dimension of international terrorism is a bit different all the sectarian things there is still prominent compounded with some terrorist activities particularly more recently with before the Al-Qaeda and now ISIS. In Syria, it's actually that side of it is more complicated. The terrorism is becoming more prominent, more and then there is a conflict with the central government. There are issues between Erbil and Baghdad issues about constitutional issues, post dictatorship issues whereby Baghdad is still carrying on with all policies and trying to create the new centralized state but at the heart of it is the same conflict. So I think for tackling these issues, the international community needs to go beneath the surface of what is happening in these conflicts. It needs to go actually why for example, I mentioned earlier why ISIS were supported in Mosul for example. They came with few thousand people suddenly swallowed tens of thousands of people taking all the Iraqi army fighting formidable force of Persian America and we thought we used to be proud that we can't fight anybody but nevertheless these people came better equipped. I think we like you or not within this enfranchised people that they think they're better off with these people at least doing their fight against somebody, a common enemy and that is the core of the issue you have to tackle it, otherwise you will never be these terrorists now. Yes, it helps bombing them, it helps cutting off their sort of supply but you also politically you got to actually bankrupt them which means you got to create whatever Saddam or I said whatever might be to solve those core problems so therefore the need, the system of governance that sharing the wealth sharing the power in these two countries between all of them so to be at peace with internally and to be at peace with their neighbor for Kurds it means really post-Muslim settlement of Iraq is different we have Daesh in the middle like that we are our neighbors we are actually all practical purposes independent from like that from border point, from security point from crisis of humanitarian crisis and actually, regrettably financially because we actually don't get even one dollar from them so I don't know what we are called now, I mean are we independent or not independent we have to solve those problems out with Iraq recognizing these hard questions that for example, I'm sorry take it another minute if it was 30 seconds the support until ISIS came in I really associated myself with America as a friend of Iraq as a friend of Kurds party so I don't want to this come out wrongly but one Iraq policy of the United States fed to extremism in Baghdad that prevented the Kurds to be armed we supposed to get arms via Baghdad or directly by weapons openly all of that was blocked because no no, if we get strong we may have bigger dreams and now when we face Daesh and all of that the first comes to our help was America itself but I wish we were given a little bit more help Daesh would not have even matured to a level that can fight thank you, so hopefully we're there unfortunately I have come to the end of the session so I'm going to ask the host minister because this is the world economic for Turkey, Turkey summit to make a one minute of a closing remarks if you could just wrap us up for us for today's panel thank you thank you we believe in the solution of regional problems we see that various opportunities need to be assessed we need to think about how we can use these opportunities to have a positive impact on the region so how can we prevent the formation of problems or how can we solve these problems those are the questions we are concerned in mind various countries have various concerns the north and the sea have great discrepancies in income, the east and the west are different culturally however these are reconcilable differences taking all of these factors into consideration there are some steps that can be taken for example there is some international organizations for example Mr. President brought up this issue a number of times we need to question the structure of the united nations someone else brought up this issue there are problems around the world and how will the UN take initiative on these issues we are going through a process of globalization where everyone is affected by the problems as well as the solutions so the question is what kind of steps can we take to make sure that decisions are taken more quickly how can we ensure that the solutions are more conscious for example in non-developed countries that are not developed the rural areas used to constitute 90% of the population now we see that urban populations have reached 70 to 80% there are also more and more young people and these young people communicate with the rest of the world and they have different demands from their governments so we have to think about the structure of the UN the UN structure is based on the post-world second world war period and the UN's current structure does not meet the world's needs now so we need to have an institutional structure that can prepare solutions for our modern problems in other words we need to change the structure of these international organizations if we do that it may be easier to take global initiatives another issue is as follows how are we going to support whom that is a key question in these aspects we need to think about the spirit of the times democracy is the rule of the people so we need to make decisions that follow democracy I think that a democratic decision would have a positive impact in many countries around the world it will be well received by many countries around the world so let's think about the regimes of the middle ages we can't use the regimes of the middle ages now simply because that was the status quo the status quo need not be maintained that would not solve our solution so we need to think about contemporary problems if there is a problem that needs to be solved then what the world needs to do is what the world we need to do is to make sure that we listen to the demands of the people let's promote the administration by the people let's promote democracy in these regions of conflict we think that such an approach will be well accepted by the public so international organizations need to be reformed this will help us set a target so we need to ensure that their discussions in areas of conflict and these discussions should focus on global policies that people find ethically acceptable thank you for taking part in today's panel and thank you all for coming and for listening