Turkey needs to act on a communication strategy now

written by Suat KINIKLIOGLU

Thursday, 16 November 2006

Everywhere we go, every meeting we attend and every seminar we participate in we hear the same thing: Turkey needs a robust communication strategy. And it needed it yesterday. Last year I wrote two pieces on the need to establish a Turkish Republic Information Service as well as the need to make use of good public diplomacy practices. I received a good amount of positive feedback, primarily from Turkish readers living abroad. In 2004, a senior British diplomat complained to me that we Turks do not give friends enough ammunition to help us in our cause in Europe. Unfortunately, we are not at a very different point from where we were two years ago.

This week we hosted Turkey's chief negotiator for the EU Ali Babacan, Commissioner Olli Rehn and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke in Brussels. It turned out to be a lively and useful event, once again underscoring the need to integrate Turkey fully into the EU. Yet it is increasingly becoming clear that Turkey not only needs a chief negotiator who is doing a great job in this capacity but Turkey also needs a chief communicator. State Minister Babacan did a great job in Brussels and contributed to the debate forcefully. That said, he has two portfolios and cannot be expected to run around European capitals all the time.

What is needed is a new agency with a chief communicator who coordinates Turkey's communication with European and foreign audiences. More precisely, Turkey needs a new agency or institution that can take over responsibility for communicating Turkey's views effectively to foreign audiences. Such an agency or institution should be tasked with reaching out aggressively to targeted audiences with well-thought-out messages.

Currently, there are approximately 33 institutions tha in one form or the other provide information to a variety of domestic and international audiences from Turkey. However, there is almost no coordination, no strategic outlook and no resources to reach out to foreign audiences on key Turkish foreign policy issues. This is not only about branding or image making. Simple texts, messages and information on what Turkey's policies entail are difficult to find. The ideal arrangement for such an agency would be that it would answer only to the prime minister and has overriding authority on Turkey's external communications. This institution should, of course, be in cooperation with relevant ministries but must be independent in its internal work and should have adequate autonomy to do its work properly. No one needs another failed bureaucratic creature that does not do anything. Its funding should be secured for foreseeable time frames. Its executive board should include members from a variety of sectors, including business and civil society.

We have suffered too long from the inability to provide friends and foes with information that explains our stances on a variety of critical issues, including Cyprus, the Armenian issue, Turkey's EU drive and Iraq. The current impasse with the EU on the Cyprus issue is a prime example of how we have mishandled communicating Turkey's position on this. Few Europeans understand why Turkey has put a condition to the extension of the Ankara Protocol to Greek Cyprus. Fewer Europeans understand the gravity of the Cyprus issue from a Turkish perspective. The Annan plan and the great risks our current government took in the referendum are all but forgotten. The Armenian issue, which has been making the headlines for months, has not been effectively communicated to foreign audiences for decades. We are partly responsible for the one-sided interpretation of events prevalent in the Western discourse on this.

The Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (TÜSIAD) has been doing extremely useful work on the communication issue, but a country's communication strategy ultimately falls within the responsibility of the government. Although, for months there has been talk of something in the making, we feel things are progressing too slow. The government should start the process to set up a new agency that would work on coordinating with the 33 institutions in getting Turkey's message out. Turkey's foreign policy community has been suffering for too long to work without the help of an effective communication strategy.

What I offer is a new institution, with a senior person heading it, responsible for coordinating Turkey's external communications. This job would not only initiate its own communication strategy but it would also provide guidelines and content to Turkey's official channels such as the TRT, the Anatolia news agency and the Directorate General for Press and Information. Needless to say, this information agency or institute would work closely with State Minister Babacan, the Secretariat General for EU Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It would no doubt enhance Babacan's efforts to communicate better with the European public. There are already a number of modest initiatives that can be made use of in this kind of an endeavor. What is needed is strong political will by our government to establish such an agency and support it after it becomes operational. Already, discussion about such a potential institution is creating resistance within some parts of the bureaucracy.