ANKARA
Turkey’s foreign minister has said the country “supports the democratization of the international system.”
However, Mevlut Cavusoglu warned that Turkey “does not have the luxury” of sitting back and watching the high-speed changes which were sweeping the region and the world.
Cavusoglu was speaking in Ankara on Monday at the start of a four-day annual ambassadors' conference where he welcomed Turkey's envoys from all over the world, congratulating them for their efforts in 2014.
Cavusoglu said Turkey's Foreign Ministry would work hard for permanent peace, no matter what problems if faced.
The foreign minister also said Turkish diplomacy is "fair, peaceful and people-oriented," and is shaped by the founder of the Republic of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's principle of “peace at home, peace in the world.”
"A total of 67 visits were performed in 2014 at the level of the Presidency, Prime Ministry and Foreign Ministry," Cavusoglu said, adding: "Turkey has become the sixth biggest diplomatic power in the world, with 228 foreign representatives."
The minister also revealed that Istanbul had become the second city in the world with the most consulates-general in it, after New York.
Cavusoglu also reiterated calls by Ankara for a "a safe zone, and no-flight zone over Syria" to prevent a new wave of migrants coming to Turkey.
He was speaking as reports emerged from Lebanon – home to around one million Syrian refugees – that the government there will now require Syrians to obtain a visa before crossing the border.
Clashes in the town of Kobani, just across from Turkey’s southern border, between the Syrian opposition and the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant forced around 200,000 people to take shelter in Turkey in late 2014.
