The inauguration of the 8th Ambassadors Conference, which started with regional sessions yesterday, was held in Ankara on 11th of January, following the visit to Martyrs' Cemetery of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and Atatürk's Mausoleum.

Along with Foreign Ministers of Norway, Chile, Kenya, Great Britain, Mr. Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the EU Commission and Mr. Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator are attending the event.

Within the scope of the Conference, Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu had a meeting with Mr. Timmermans who addressed the Conference on the first day of the event.

At his inaugural speech, Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu explained that the theme of the Conference is “Crisis Management: Humanitarian Solutions”, which was determined by taking the concepts of tolerance and humanitarianism inherited from our ancestors into account. The said theme, blended by the history and the present, is also chosen considering the upcoming events of UN World Humanitarian Summit and Least Developed Countries Meeting to be held in Turkey on May 2016.

Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu also mentioned that Turkey is hosting more than 2,5 million Syrians and approximately 200 thousand Iraqis, thus became the country sheltering the highest number of refugees in the world, the cost of which exceeded 8 billion US Dollars, while the amount of the aid delivered to Turkey for the refugees remained only at 455 million US Dollars. All these facts demonstrate how human oriented diplomacy became an integral part of the Turkish foreign policy.

In his speech Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu also dwelled on a number of regional and global issues including Turkey-EU, Turkey-Africa relations, Palestine and Cyprus issues.

Stressing that Turkey will always shoulder regional and global responsibility to assure peace and security, Foreing Minister Çavuşoğlu said Turkey will deepen its relations with the allies based upon the common principles and values.

The first day of the Conference continued with the internal sessions.