A warm
welcome to our guests who have travelled to Singapore for the first regional
workshop of a new GCTF initiative, co-led by Türkiye and the US, on the
protection of soft targets from terrorist attacks.

I would like to start by thanking the
Government of Singapore for hosting this workshop.

I would also like to thank our US
colleagues for their relentless efforts within the Global Counter Terrorism
Forum.

Türkiye and the US closely cooperated in
order to create this important forum in 2011 and co-chaired the GCTF until last
year. Although we have already handed over this important role to the
Netherlands and Morocco, Turkish-US partnership is continuing. Last year the
two countries co-led two important initiatives within the GCTF. And this year,
we have been working together again on this new initiative on the protection of
soft targets.

Distinguished participants,

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. It
has always been a security challenge for governments and a source of fear for
ordinary people.

What we are facing today, however, is
unprecedented: We see a drastic proliferation of terrorist groups that possess
enhanced capacity to inflict great physical damage on us.

They have an ever
increasing ability to disseminate their “narratives” and can lure disillusioned
young people to commit heinous forms of violence.

Hardly a day goes by without an act of
terrorism taking place somewhere in the world, indiscriminately affecting
innocent people, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As such, terrorism has become a truly
global and rapidly evolving threat.

To address this threat effective, nimble
and coordinated global response has become a must.

Distinguished participants,

There has always been a transnational
aspect to terrorism. We, the Turkish diplomats, know this very well through
bitter experience: It was in 1973 when a Turkish diplomat, Mr. Mehmet Baydar
was killed by a terrorist when he was serving abroad as the Consul General of Türkiye.
This act of terrorism was the first in a series of terrorist attacks targeting
Turkish diplomats in various countries. Since then, Türkiye has been and,
unfortunately continues to be victimized by different terrorist groups.

The call for international cooperation
is not just a rhetoric or an academic interest for Türkiye. The terrorist
groups targeting Türkiye, including the PKK, DHKP-C and Daesh, operate across
borders, running camps and acquiring financial resources in third countries.
They even freely operate media outlets to disseminate their propaganda and
glorify their vicious acts. We have seen perpetrators of terrorist crimes,
their mentors and financiers escape justice and travel freely in third
countries.

Our own struggle against this menace has
tought us the crucial lesson that we cannot succeed in our counter-terrorism
efforts in the absence of solid international cooperation.

Accordingly, Türkiye has
been leading efforts to increase awareness of the international community on
the threat of terrorism.

We have worked hard bilaterally and at
the various international platforms to create mechanisms for more effective
information sharing and operational cooperation in a counter terrorism
context.

We have also contributed
to the development of new legal instruments aimed at detecting and suppressing
terrorists and bringing them to justice.

Looking back at recent history, we can
confidently claim that the capabilities of the international community to
address the threat of terrorism have enhanced considerably.

Yet, despite all these efforts, the
scourge of terrorism remains very much alive and continues to evolve and
inflict pain on our societies.

2016 was a terrible
year in that respect: We have all been traumatized by brutal and inhuman acts
of terror. We lost so many lives. This year started just as badly.

Our peoples are
rightfully demanding their Governments to stop these killing machines. Is this
possible? Can we stop them?

The simple answer
is: Yes. We can defeat this scourge.

Yet, based on our
own experience in Türkiye, I admit that, it is not an easy task. We have to
consolidate international solidarity, and the GCTF has an important role to
play in that respect.

In fact, the GCTF
has been the first platform to raise the then-emerging issue of Foreign
Terrorist Fighters a few years ago.
It has also played a
leading role in bringing the crucial subject of violent extremism and
radicalization to the attention of a wider audience. Thanks to our joint
efforts within the GCTF, we have now an impressive tool-kit



addressing the whole
life cycle of radicalization, as well as other non-binding guidance documents
and good practices. These documents benefit not onlypolicy makers and
practitioners, but also local communities and civil society in their efforts to
counter terrorism and violent extremism.

Now, Türkiye and the US are co-leading
another important initiative on the protection of soft targets from terrorist
attacks.

As a matter of
fact, we have been observing a change in the tactics and methods of terrorist
groups around the world:
A decade ago, critical
spots such as military facilities, embassies and airliners were the priority
targets of terrorist groups. They targeted these places for spectacular
attacks. Yet, due to various reasons, they are now shifting their target
towards public places such as religious centers, tourist sites, public
transportation, hotels, restaurants, stadiums, and entertainment venues, where
people frequent.

These places are
relatively vulnerable to a terrorist attack due to their open access and
limited security measures.

A teenager, blowing
himself up during a street wedding in Gaziantep, killing more than 50
civilians, including many children…

PKK terrorists
turning a car into a bomb and blowing it on Kızılay, the heart of Ankara…

Or a driver in
Nice, running over with a truck a crowd that has gathered for July 14
celebrations…

A gang of
terrorists, shooting civilians indiscriminately at Bataclan theater and several
restaurants in Paris…

Or, a terrorist in
an SUV crushing the pedestrians on a bridge near Parliament in London…

This is the new
face of terrorism today.

Human, economic,
and political consequences of these attacks are evident. We must focus on soft
target protection and that is the crux of our initiative.

The Soft Targets
Initiative has two objectives:

-Raise awareness,
identify needs, and leverage expertise and experiences to better protect
potential soft targets; and

-Develop a set of
internationally-recognized non-binding good practices, which can serve as the
basis for international engagement, assistance, and training to enhance the
security and resilience of sites that are potential soft targets.

We aim to bring
together not only national governments and local authorities, but also
international organizations, and private industry in a series of meetings in
different regions to share views and expertise.

The launch of the
STI initiative was held in December last year, in Antalya/Türkiye.
It was attended by about
60 experts from more than 20 countries worldwide.

Today is the first
regional workshop, to be followed by similar workshops in Senegal and Brussels.

All these meetings
and workshops will result in the development of a good practices document that
will be put forward for approval at the GCTF Ministerial meeting on the margins

of the UN General
Assembly in September 2017.

Distinguished
guests,

Shortly after the
launch of the meeting in Antalya, the PKK perpetrated two simultaneous vehicle
borne IED attacks near a stadium in Istanbul. The result was 44 casualties and
hundreds of injured people.

A few weeks later,
on the new year eve a DAESH-linked terrorist opened fire in a well known
restaurant in Istanbul killing 36 people. The perpetrator was captured alive a
few days later. What is important to note here is that the perpetrator was
trained in the Fergana valley, captured in Iran, then released and he crossed
illegally to Türkiye.




In other words, he was
on the radar of several countries, but we had not received any information from
them. We also learned that the initial target was the very crowded Taksim
square in Istanbul. The terrorist had conducted a surveillance in the square
and concluded that due to hard security control that venue was not suitable for
a terrorist attack.

These two attacks
are tragic examples that indicate the importance of the Soft Targets
Initiative.

I am confident that
the discussions we will hold today and tomorrow will bring about valuable
insight and best practices that can benefit all our partners in their efforts
to fight the scourge of terrorism.

Thank you.