Prudent optimism: Turkish Ambassador. The Defence Viewpoints interview by Nick Watts

Turkey sits at the nexus of a region beset with geopolitical issues. Developments in Syria; the prospects for the Middle East Peace Process; developments in the north and south Caucasus; the continuing tensions with Iran and the situation in Iraq. Reflecting on these matters and on its relationship with the EU Turkey’s Ambassador to London HE Mr Ahmet Ünal Çeviköz characterized his outlook as being based on “prudent optimism.”

 

The UK interned substantial numbers of enemy aliens in the two World Wars.The internment of people of Japanese descent in the USA is well known (if often exaggerated) Little is known, and is becoming less so, about the internment by the USA of people of European descent - none of whom were subsequently compensated. The USA put pressure Latin American countries to expel similar people, including Jews who were sent to the Third Reich. On the next page Joseph E Fallon, U K Defence Forum Research Associate, explains how this chapter of history is disappearing into a "memory hole".

By Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary General

Extract from speech at Tbilisi University, Georgia 16 September 2008

When I was here last, in October of 2007, less than a year ago, no one could have predicted the dramatic events that have recently unfolded in this country. I have come back to Tbilisi this week, together with the members of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's most senior political body, to demonstrate the Alliance's strong support for Georgia - and for the democratic choices which Georgia has made, and will continue to make.