In an interview given to the MONTSAME National News Agency, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Turkey to Mongolia Murat Karagöz talked about some topics, including the current political situation of Turkey and the neighboring nations, Mongolian citizens living in Turkey and relations between Turkey and Russia.

Mongolians now have already learned much about the current state of emergency declared in Turkey, which maintain a broad range of bilateral relations with Mongolia in a large number of fields. But, we have a little knowledge of what is the state-of-emergency, what types of measures are taken within the situation and etc. Therefore, in the first place, can you please elaborate on this for us?

Any democracy may declare that the country is in a state of emergency in times of any widespread acts of violence and serious deterioration of public order. Under such legislations, as the Constitution of Turkey and the European Convention on Human Rights, state-of-emergency legislation can be declared. Following the military coup attempt took place on July 15; the Turkish National Security Council convened an urgent meeting and issued a recommendation that there is an inevitable necessity to proclaim a state-of-emergency in the country instantly. In pursuance to the decision, the Council of Ministers, meeting under the chairpersonship of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey has issued a decree to enforce the state-of-emergency for 90 days starting July 21.

I would like to emphasize that the emergency state does not affect the daily mundane lives of ordinary citizens and the government will not prejudice the fundamental human rights and freedom of individuals prescribed by law. The main reason and purpose of the declaration of the emergency state is aimed at cleaning the members and allies a terrorist organization called FETO, which infiltrated deep into the Turkish government apparatus, out from the whole system. They have been embedded into the military and police institutions and also even the Foreign Ministry. In short, the accomplice of the FETO group will be removed permanently from the Turkish government organizations through internal inspections during the three months of state-of-emergency. 

Only after one month, hundreds of Mongolian students will be heading to Turkey for the new academic year. Should they be concerned over the state-of-emergency announced and wait until it is revoked? What do you say to that? 

There are around 3 thousand Mongolian people living and working in Turkey, of which 9 hundred are studying at the universities. Furthermore, about 130 Mongolian-Turkish married couples are living in Turkey. The Mongolian residents in Turkey are dispersed into many cities of Turkey, but the majority of them lives in Istanbul and Ankara cities. The night of the attempted military coup in Turkey, not only Turkish people, but also expats in the country including, Mongolians were scared. It is noteworthy that the Mongolian Embassy in Ankara and the Consulate General in Istanbul had stayed in close and regular touch with us. Warnings, cautions and guidance notifying people not to leave their homes, not to go out on the streets and to wait until the situation calms down were issued at that time. As a result, no incidence of injury or death of Mongolian citizens was occurred, thankfully.

Let me say again that the state-of-emergency does not exert influence on the travel to Turkey. The visa-free travel condition between the citizens of the two states is still in full effect and there are no any restrictions to the reciprocal movements. We were just informed by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism that “no changes have been made to the planned and arranged travel itineraries and routes”. To make a clarification on it, I will phrase an example. Students of the Turkish Studies Department of the National University of Mongolia are involved in the Turkish language course in Turkey every year.  We sent off five Mongolian students to Turkey last Tuesday. This is a sign of a great confidence of the students’ teachers and parents imposed to us. We reckon that there is no need to worry for the students.

Istanbul International Airport is a key passage for Mongolian nationals to other regions and countries. Can you provide some clarifications on whether are there some measures taken on limiting the traffic?

No measures on limiting the air traffic has been taken at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport, and the airport’s operations are running smoothly. As you said, Istanbul city is the bridge for not only Mongolians but also for millions of foreign nationals to East Asia, Balkans and Middle East, as well as other countries.

I suppose you remember that dozens of people have lost their precious lives and many have been injured in the brutal terror attack by the Islamic State at the airport, occurred on 28th of last month. However, as results of immediate action, the airport has fully shifted to normal operations.

I will not deny there might have been some irregularities caused by the attack. In case when a passenger is unable to take the desired and planned flight due to these irregularities, the Turkish side is fully capable and willing to transfer the passenger to the nearest possible flight or transit flight, or even to cover the expenses of their stay in hotels. Any person, in my view, have received an end in such kind of situation.

After the coup attempt, by the afternoon of July 16, the Istanbul airport has been conducting smooth operations, thanks to prompt action for required measures.

Government of Turkey assumes Fethullah Gulen has organized this military coup attempt. What are the reasons behind this assumption? How the group, which he leads, accumulated such power?

It is duly notable that this attempt to military coup d’etat was unlike any other previous coups. Generally, a coup is organized under a strict military administration. A quarantine, after taking over the media, is almost the typical tactic.

However, to observe this recent attempt, the military group began by opening fire to ordinary citizens and had jets flying at deck levels, while gunning the Grand National Assembly building. Streets, avenues and bridges were seized by tanks. Such an attempt has never before occurred in the history of Turkey. This is a confirmation that Fethullah Gulen has led a terrorist organization against the state. The organization, led by Gulen, hs always been threatening the security of Turkey, and the attempt was not the first time this organization has exposed itself.

The organization has been using the religious teachings in a wrong way for the past 30 years. They have been covering their vicious objectives under the so-called cultural bridges, educational institutes and NGOs.

Over the past years, this group of people has penetrated the Turkish Armed Forces, law enforcement and judicial organizations with overwhelming inertia. They would force their way of thinking and shamelessly breach laws of Turkey. We all know very well that Fethullah Gulen, who resides in Pennsylvania of the USA, is the mastermind behind all this. The Government of Turkey has reached the US Government on this issue for four previous times, demanding his return to the Republic of Turkey, therefore, before justice, through submitting legal affirmations and claims by Ministers of Justice and Foreign Affairs of Turkey.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to mention that Turkey and the USA established an agreement on the transfer of sentenced persons. In accordance, the Government has submitted a request on Gulen’s transfer. We duly expect that the US will return Gulen to Turkey for the country is a good partner of ours.

There has been a conflict and somewhat stagnation in the relations of Turkey and Russia, since the incident where the Turkish side downed a Russian bombardier on November 24, last year. But the recent media coverage shows that “observations are positive on the two countries’ relations”. What are the signs of improved interactions?

Since Turkey's shooting down of Russian military airliner, when it violated the air frontier of Turkey last November 24, a frigidness remained in the political and defense ties, as well as many other fields. This had been harmful for the both sides and had negative consequences. Russia is a neighbor to Turkey.  There is a Cooperation Council, which regulates the relations of the two neighboring countries, chaired by the President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

President Erdogan, through a letter and a phone call to the Russian President Putin, has reached some agreement with him on the necessary measures to be taken to normalize the bilateral relations.

Aside from this, Putin assured his solidarity with Turkey by expressing his condemnation against the attack at Ataturk Airport, occurred on last June 28. After this, Russian tourists restarted travelling to Turkey. Russians have a decent weight in the Turkish tourism growth. In specific, 3-4 million Russian tourists spent their vacations in our country.

Moreover, the bilateral trade turnover reached 30 billion USD each year. Turkey imports 60% of its natural gas demand from Russia, and is suitable to underline that there has not been any delay in the natural gas imports from Russia in the recent months of unpleasant atmosphere in the relations.

With the restoration of good relations, it is our hope that the energy ties will intensify with more speed than it had ever before.

On the other hand, Turkey and Russia have entered the Organization for Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BLEC). During the regular meeting of the BLEC, held last month, the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Chavushoglu and the Russian FM Sergey Lavrov have met. I would like to emphasize that this meeting had played an important role in the normalizing of the bilateral relations. Furthermore, the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Mehmet Shimshek along with the Minister of Economy Nihat Zeibekchi paid a visit in Moscow last Tuesday and discussed with the Russian side about preparation to the meeting of President Erdogan and President Putin.

The two countries also cooperates, aside from energy, in many other sectors such as construction, infrastructure, knitted goods' trade and fruit exports. In the outcome of careful and consistent actions, the bilateral relations have revived in such a short period of time, and have found the former shape.

One of the hottest spots in the world is the Turkey-Syria border zone. How are the circumstances there?

Turkey share borders with a number of countries. Instability has arose after the Iraq-US was had erupted in 2003 in Iraq, one of our neighbors. It is safe to say that this war has stricken our neighbors as a shock.

The internal political conflicts and chaos in Turkey's neighbor in the South - Syria, began in 2011, has obviously taken its toll on Turkey. In a general image, Turkey is surrounded by nine countries with political and governance crises. The circumstances in thses countries have been affecting the demography and religious propaganda in Turkey.

As for Syria, a brutal system has taken over this country, which uses fire arms against its people. The situation in this country have slipped out of control and degraded to a civil war. Hundreds of innocent lives have been lost to this war. As you know, millions of people have sought refuge in national and international areas, out of the consequences of war. For instance, some three million refugees have entered only in Turkey. While certain percentage of them are living in the refugee camps, the rest are dispersed in many cities of Turkey. More than 10 billion USD has been dedicated from the State Budget to save these people in such misery. Although, the Government has sought support from international organizations to ease such a financial burden, they have not responded yet. Turkey has commenced negotiations last spring with the European Union on the solution to Syrian crisis. We will pursue a principle in our foreign policy that Turkey will be a part of resolving actions, instead of being a part of conflicts.

It is appropriate to state that crisis in Syria have promoted the establishment of a terror group called "Islamic State". Our country's armed forces have been giving strikes to the objects of this terror group inside our border and abroad, because Turkey has become the next target for them.

How did the attempted military coup affect the economy, external relations and foreign investments of Turkey? How would it have an impact on the bilateral economic partnership between Mongolia and Turkey?

I would like to say a few words about the impact it would make on our relations with other countries. Turkey is certainly an honored member of the international community. Aside from being a founding member of the United Nations and the Council of Europe, Turkey is also a member of the NATO alliance and the OSCE and has joined a large number of regional cooperation institutions.  We believe that the attempt to overthrow the government will not have a negative influence on the relations between Mongolia and Turkey, quite the contrary, the relationship will be brought forward and closer. The Mongolians have just celebrated their traditional Naadam Festival as recently the Ramadan Feast took place in Turkey recently. Also, the new government of Mongolia has formed. In this connection, it is expected that high-profile visits would increase between the two states. The Turkish Prime Minister, the Parliament Speaker and the Foreign Minister delivered letters congratulating the new government authorities for their appointments.  We have a willingness to broaden and reinforce bilateral economic ties. It is indispensable to keep the current level of bilateral relations in the educational sector, which has already moved toward the high level.

In terms of Turkish investment to foreign countries, the coup attempt has a little effect on the Turkish economy. Most importantly, the recent case shows that Turkey has gained much experience in the sense of conflict management, especially the fact that banking and financial institutions have been standing on their feet solidly proves that.

During only a week following the incident on July 18-25, Turkey has exported a total of USD 2.4 billion of goods and products. The demand for the clothing and apparels made in Turkey has increased. Despite the general forecast that the inflation rate be at 7.5 percent in 2016, the government is working to keep the rate at 5 percent. At the same time, the country is currently implementing more than 100 projects in countries around the globe. I would like I wish to underline that those ongoing projects will continue without being relied upon political situations.

On the other hand, the restoration of relations between Turkey and Russia would definitely shape the Turkish economy in a positive manner. Regarding its economic power, Turkey is ranked 6th in Europe and 17th in the World. I have a statistical data showing that the Turkish people have exchanged currencies worth a total of USD 9 billion for their personal uses as of July 26. This is a kind of verification of Turkish people giving hope to their ruling government.

B.Adiyakhuu