ALMATY (A.A) - 04.06.2002 - President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said on Tuesday that 'the understanding that problems of others which don't hurt me don't concern me' played an important role in making terrorism a plague of our era.
Sezer, who addressed the summit meeting of Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, pointed out that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev had made a proposal in 1992 in the U.N. General Assembly to initiate a security and cooperation process in Asia, and that this proposal became mature in time. Sezer said today this proposal came to a stage that a document would be signed in the level of heads of government and state.
Pointing out that complementary specialties of security and stability concepts began to be understood better, Sezer said, ''it was gradually understood that increase of security in one country should not mean decrease in security of another country. In parallel with those important developments, radical changes occurred in concept of threat. New problems like terrorism, spreading of mass destruction weapons, organized crimes, drug trafficking, xenophobia, racism and aggressive nationalism, which effect international security and peace began to threaten the nations.,
Sezer said characteristics of those problems increased the need for a comprehensive understanding of security and its fulfillment based on cooperation.
Sezer said implementation of global arrangements which aim at providing security and stability with good will and seriousness was important.
''Those arrangements, which have the quality of inspection of weapons, disarmament, confidence building measures, forms the principle framework of stability. In this respect, I would like to point out that Turkey is a side to all international agreements and arrangements envisaging non-proliferation of mass destruction weapons,'' Sezer said.
''When geography close to Turkey is considered, it would be seen that inspection of regional weapons, disarmament, and confidence building measures are not adequate,'' Sezer said, adding that in this respect Turkey exerted efforts to make bilateral and multilateral arrangements.
Sezer said that there are not only regional, but global problems in the geography where the conference is held, adding that ''I sincerely hope these problems to be solved by benefiting from the relations and mechanisms to be underlined by Almaty Act to be signed today.''
Sezer said that the Almaty Act puts forward the basic principles of the cooperation to be undertaken to strengthen security and stability, adding that ''the act underlines our resolution to create a security area in which all states live in peace, freedom and prosperity. I believe that this act will be implemented by all sides with good will and Almaty process will deepen in the coming years. Terrorism comes the top among the most important problems which the international society faces today. Turkey which suffered a lot from terrorism, is ranked among the first countries which can understand the pain of terrorism the best. I would like to stress that the ignorance of a country to other countries' problems as long as these problems don't target that specific country has a role in making terrorism the fatal disease in the world.''
Sezer said that many painful experience including the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 put forward the need to make cooperation in the fight with terrorism, adding that the incidents showed that terrorism is not limited to any geography and it can't be attributed to any culture or civilization.
Terrorism can't have any excuse and it is one of the most severe human rights violations, Sezer said and noted that the basic principles of human rights and the principles of legal state have to be respected in the fight with terrorism.
Sezer said that the publication of a declaration on fight with terrorism and inter-civilizational dialogue in addition to the Almaty Act will make the meeting more meaningful.
Sezer added that the conference in which countries belonging to different cultures and political structures are represented, constituted a favorable forum to call the international society not to turn the fight with terrorism into a movement that targets a certain culture, religion and nation.