G-8 Tips Turkey for Pioneering Reform Role

Turkey, which was invited to attend the summit as a Democratic Partner, will co-chair the Dialogue mechanism with G-8 member Italy and G-8 Regional Partner Yemen. As a co-chair of DAD, Turkey will play a key role in the regional reform process.

A project declaration, study and dialogue mechanisms in numerous fields for the regional reforms will reportedly be announced during the course of today’s meetings. The three co-chairs of DAD plan to form official consulting mechanisms that can be used to help facilitate political reforms in the region.

One of DAD’s first tasks will be to contribute to the assistance efforts of the reformist civil society entities in the Middle East and North Africa. Sources close to the discussions indicated that even though the finances of the Project are not yet clear, the other G-8 countries of U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Canada, Japan and Russia, assured the co-chairs that this will not be a problem.

In order to determine which countries would co-chair DAD, three categories were formed: G-8 countries, Democratic Partners and Regional Partners. From the G-8 countries, Germany and Italy were dwelt upon the most, but in the end Italy was chosen. Yemen as a Regional Partner and Turkey as a Democratic partner were also invited to co-chair DAD. The Democratic Partner category introduces a future opportunity for countries, such as Switzerland, that are not G-8 members to contribute to DAD.

A great deal of attention was reportedly paid to Turkey’s point of view while DAD partner countries from the Middle East were being determined. At first, the group was going to be called the ‘Democratic Assistance Group’; however, because of French objections, it was changed to ‘Democratic Assistance Dialogue’.