Conversations with Turkey's Career Pioneers - Hikmet Çetin

We had our seventh Turkey's Career Pioneers Talk with Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Hikmet Çetin. Mr. Çetin started his speech by explaining what foreign affairs is and talked about the importance of Turkey having a unique geography, history and location. He then continued by stating that Turkey has seven neighboring countries with different regimes and governments and underlined the importance of this on foreign affairs.

He underlined that without Atatürk’s reforms there would be no democracy, and that democracy cannot be imposed on people. He added that people can be of different sects and religions, and once they can state this with no after effects, then democracy exists. Çetin, who told students to read Turgut Özakman’s book titled “Kurtuluş” to understand how we came to our present days, also touched upon the politics of Arab countries, the Armenian question, Kurdish initiative and Dersim in response to student questions. He stated that he believed it is not fair to judge those days with today’s conditions, and that he has faith in the new generation to do what his generation could not do.

Çetin attributed his being a favorable name in every political era and being the first name that comes to mind when there is need for reconciliation to his love of people and belief in the fact that democracy is a regime of reconciliation and that politics is not fighting. He told students that graduates of international relations can find jobs anywhere and suggested that they get their graduate education in a different area, and use their opportunities well to improve themselves. After the talk, Mr. Çetin was also a guest on Radyo TEDU to answer questions.