The Turkic American Alliance (TAA) and its member Federations hosted 200+ US officials from 30 states in Istanbul and some other cities.
Turkish Investment Support & Promotion Agency, Zaman Newspaper, the U.S. Consulate-General, Kimse Yokmu Foundation, Media Foundation were among the places visited for meetings as well as major historical and touristic sites such as Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Basilica Cistern and Grand Bazaar. Most groups took a Bosphorous Tour also. For some lucky delegations, private family houses were arranged for more in depth cultural adventure during traditional Turkish dinner.
At one of those visits, Cuneyt Selcuk, the Chief Project Director of Investment Support& Promotion Agency gave a presentation about Turkey’s economic profile and top reasons why Turkey is great place to invest for foreign investors.
Mr. Selcuk mentioned that Turkey ranks as the 13th most attractive destination for Foreign Direct Investment in the world, and 9th among emerging economies in 2012 according to a survey by A.T. Kearney. Similarly, Turkey ranks as the 7th most attractive emerging market according to Bloomberg Markets. According to expert opinion, Turkey will continue to climb up the ladder of top FDI recipient countries with its vast potential. Overall, Turkey will be home to investments that will contribute to new jobs, new technologies and new visions.
It was another meeting with Deborah R. Mennuti, Deputy Principal Officer at Consulate General Istanbul and Dr. Craig Dicker, Public Affair Officer. They explained United States mission to Turkey as well as managing challenges, counterterrorism, security interests, economic overview, economic revolution, energy cooperation, and consular operations. Also they discussed Prime Minister Erdogan and President Obama meetings.
Meeting with leading political analyst and columnist for Today’s Zaman, Abdülhamit Bilici was always enjoyable. In 1992, he mentioned that they established the Cihan News Agency, with news services in English, Arabic, Russian and Kurdish in addition to Turkish. The agency has reporters in all the provinces of Turkey, and in 65 countries. Six years ago, they started an English-language daily newspaper, Today’s Zaman and a bimonthly English review of Turkish economics and business.
Bilici also said, “We support democratization and rule of law. We are conservative in the sense that we appreciate family values, and we put a positive perspective toward history and traditions. The Turkish people appreciate this. The second-largest newspaper has a circulation of 500,000, and is liberal. We get threatened regularly by the fundamentalists and from the PKK front. Our line is very moderate and we condemn all terrorist attacks, whether in New York, Istanbul or Bali. We harshly condemn the al-Qaeda line and we are very much against the PKK’s methodology. And that automatically angers them, but it doesn’t discourage us from continuing our line. You can see with your own eyes. We have Islamist columnists, liberal columnists, some former Maoist columnists, also Christians and Jews. It’s a very interesting combination that will attract the attention of fundamentalist groups, but we think this is very important for Turkish society.”
