The second day of the Seventh Ambassadors Conference started with the address of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Mr. Antonio Guterres on 6 January, 2015.

High Commissioner Guterres reminded that Turkey is the fourth biggest donor country and underlined that Turkey is the country that accepts the biggest number of refugees together with Pakistan and is a very reliable and essential UN partner. Guterres reminded that currently there are more refugees than ever since World War II, that there are 13 million people who are forced to leave their homes in Syria and 2 million of them in Iraq and described Turkey’s generosity and hospitality towards the Syrian refugees as unprecedented.

Afterwards, Ambassadors were received by the President Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a lunch. President Erdoğan stated “We will achieve our foreign policy goals through working together in harmony and in coordination with the Prime Minister, The Foreign Minister and our esteemed Ambassadors. In 2015, we will continue to work in order to enhance our country’s reputation all over the world and our proactive foreign policy to steer our economy, our politics and our social life to a better position.

On the second day of the conference, Foreign Minister of Argentina Hector Timerman and Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, Bert Koenders addressed to our Ambassadors. Guest Foreign Ministers touched upon international issues and bilateral relations in their speeches and answered Ambassadors’ questions related to the points they made in their speeches.

The second day of the conference continued with presentations on economy, cultural diplomacy and public diplomacy, respectively made by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, Minister of Culture and Tourism Ömer Çelik and Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan.

Reminding that Turkey has assumed the G-20 Presidency for 2015, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan indicated that we need to pay more attention to the international economic developments. Saying that Turkey grows around % 3-4, Babacan stated that the growth rate has slowed down but a balanced and sustainable growth is aimed and the growth rate is higher than those achieved by European countries.

Minister of Culture and Tourism Ömer Çelik stated in his speech that the Alliance of Civilizations Initiative, co-chaired by Turkey, is an essential platform against the rising xenophobia and Islamophobia and this initiative must be brought to a central position.

On the other hand, Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan underlined that Turkey has been facing problems in expressing herself to the international community for many years, hence public diplomacy instruments used by Turkey has to be further diversified, and the institutions and other shareholders that engage in public diplomacy activities have to designate a common communication strategy together.