Turkey - Mexico Round Table Meeting was Held

The first of Turkey Mexico Roundtable Meeting series was held in Mexico City which is the capital of Mexico, with the main theme of "Turkey - Mexico: Rising Powers, Opportunities and Risks in Changing World Order" in June 23-24, 2014.

Turkey-Mexico Roundtable Meetings was decided to be alternately done by the aim of strategically contribution to the relations of two countries that began an inspiring model partnership in Latin America with the strategically partnership agreement which was signed in Turkey with the visit of Enrique Pena Nieto (the Head of State of Mexico) in December, 2013 and was based on the cooperation protocol that was added as a “talking point“ to the dossier which was signed in Mexico City between COMEXI and TASAM in the year of 2010 and was prepared for Turkey visit of Patricia Espinosa (the Foreign Minister of the period) in the year of 2010 according to authorities of the Foreign Ministry of Mexico.

A committee from Turkey, that contains Vice-Presidents of TASAM Murat Bilhan (the Ambassador (R)) and Prof. Esra Hatipoğlu, the Advisor of Chairman Prof. Ali Engin Oba (the Ambassador (R)) and Assoc. Prof. Evren Çelik Wiltse from TOBB Economy and Technology University, was participated to the Roundtable Meeting which was organized with the cooperation of TASAM (Turkish Asian Center For Strategical Studies) and COMEXI (Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales) in the position of the most important think tank in Mexico and whose chairman is Fernando Solana (the former Foreign Minister of Mexico). And the committee of COMEXI led by Luis de la Calle (the Vice-Chairman of COMEXI) was represented by politicians, diplomats, academicians and experts containing Carlos Heredia, Martin Borrego, İsrael Fernandez, Gabriela Cuevas, Federico Bass, Odracır Barqurra and Eric Rojo.

Turkey-Mexico Roundtable Meeting was held by seven sessions with presentations and speeches about the titles as “Development of Relations between Mexico and Turkey“, “Investigation of the Effect of Reforms in Mexico“, “Change of Mexico, Turkey and the International Energy Context“, “Mexico and Turkey in G-20“, “Election of Presidency 2014, Turkey: What Should Be Expected, What Will Happen?“, “Turkey in Latin America“ and “Security and Global Management: Subjects and Challenges“. In addition a breakfast chat including an intellectual discuss in the theme of “Medium-Sized Powers: Mexico, Turkey and Junction of MIKTA“ was done between the committees of TASAM and COMEXI within the framework of the meeting.

In the meeting of lots of discuss related to the relations of Mexico-Turkey, it was focused in defining special fields of providing a tighter cooperation among the partners for two days.

It was emphasized in the joint declaration published by TASAM and COMEXI in the end of the first Turkey-Mexico Roundtable Meeting that both think tanks were decided about encouraging an intellectual and positive dialogue among the partners for making the potential of cooperation between Turkey and Mexico more active.

Again in the joint declaration published, the importance of reciprocal visits made by top politicians and agreements signed by them about developing bilateral relations was underlined. In addition, the necessity of comprehension and cooperation to contain universities, business world and civil society going beyond the high policy elements was expressed.

It was exclaimed in the declaration that according to the present acceleration caught to develop relations and the obvious definition of priorities of the agenda immediately, these two countries which has lots of similarities from global heritage to mutual aims and values shared about global order and to mutual international organization memberships could get over the problems such as language and geographically distance.

The importance of signing a Free Trade Agreement of Turkey and Mexico, both being local and middle-sized powers, was emphasized. And it was pointed out that if it does occur, it can have a role as a serious catalytic in deepening of the relations.

Internal and external problems being confronted by Turkey and Mexico and the obligation of forming the content and agenda of MIKTA in a different shape from the other present constructions were pointed out in the Turkey-Mexico Roundtable Meeting in which was discussed foreign policy agendas with the concept of MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, Australia) that is a new initiative.

The team of TASAM was welcomed by Ahmet Acet (TR Mexico Ambassador) in the process of Turkey-Mexico Roundtable Meeting was held in the period of acceleration of the relations with the Latin America which was an area came to the front properly to evolutions of foreign policy in agenda of Turkey.

The Declaration of the first Turkey-Mexico Roundtable Meeting will be published soon by TASAM.

For further information;

http://www.tasam.org/en/Etkinlik/126/turkey_-_mexico_round_table_meeting_1