UN unable to solve problems, prevent conflicts: Turkey’s foreign minister

AYDIN, Turkey

The UN is unble to solve problems, take the lead on any issue and prevent conflicts, Turkey’s foreign minister said Friday.

Mevlut Cavusoglu said UN structures such as the Security Council, veto rights and voting should be changed.

“These need to change, if not, the UN will slowly disappear like the League of Nations,” he said at a tourism event in western Aydin province.

Cavusoglu said that a lot has changed in the past few decades and international institutions need to keep up with the change.

“The world has changed. Turkey also has changed. We cannot act like today’s Turkey is and 60 years ago Turkey is the same,” he said.

Referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recently published book, Cavusoglu said that “A fairer world is possible.”

Cavusoglu said the coronavirus pandemic created new challenges and changes that Turkey is preparing well for the post-pandemic international cooperation as well as competition.

“We stand for cooperation and effective multilateralism. The global system has shortcomings, mistakes, hypocrisy is at its peak. These are the realities of the world. But we will not withdraw from the international system just because these issues exist. On the contrary, we strive to strengthen and renew the international system.”

-Tourism and COVID-19

Cavusoglu said the tourism sector was hit hard by the pandemic in the past year.

“In order to revitalize the tourism sector, we have implemented the concept of healthy tourism to bring our tourism-related facilities back to life,” he said.

The top Turkish diplomat said Turkey has worked hard to minimize the pandemic’s effects on the tourism sector and prioritize tourism diplomacy in the international arena.

“The UK removed Turkey from the red list and placed it on the amber list. But there was a disagreement about the vaccine. Our president brought this issue in his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in their meeting in New York. The BioNtech vaccine is produced in Germany, and two Turkish scientists developed this vaccine. There is no problem for those who have the BioNtech vaccine in Europe, there is no clarity yet for those who are in Turkey. Corrections have been made on that issue,” he said.

Cavusoglu said tourism should be diversified in Turkey and health tourism attracts much more attention in the world, especially during the pandemic.

*Writing and contribution by Busra Nur Cakmak in Ankara