AECR-Conservatives & Reformists Summit

I was delighted to present the role of NATO, and Turkey, the frontline state, with the need to reconsider strategies based on soft power to counter all the challenges.

AECR-Conservatives & Reformists Summit was held at the Rixos Hotel in Antalya, Turkey from 17th-20th March 2016, under the patronage of Rt Hon Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and President of the Conservatives and Reformists Initiative. Other keynote speakers will include Dr. Syed Kamall MEP, Chairman of the ECR Group, Tuğrul Türkeş, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, Tobias Ellwood MP, UK Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Professor Guy Sorman, economist and founder of Action against Hunger, as well as many others politicians and scholars.

This conference was focused on the challenges faced by Turkey, a NATO ally and stressed the importance of maintaining civil liberties and an open society. The conference also discussed the tragedy in Syria and the consequent migration crisis.

The Military actions and reactions have never been the solution, what is really needed in the Middle East is not a hard power policy, what is really needed is a soft power strategy that needs to counter all the challenges that I have mentioned.

A soft power that includes building, communication, dialogue, capacity-building, training and exercises, planning and support for contingencies, and operational coordination and support. Cooperation will continue to develop in a practical way, towards diffusing the military secularity dictatorship as well as the religious dictatorship to achieve a liberal model of plurality and a free prosperous society where everybody is respected where no one is denied.