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Envoy works on Turkey's image

The Turkish Trade Office in Taipei will be bringing some of Turkey's cultural and artistic treasures to Taiwan as part of the country's efforts to introduce its true face to people in Taiwan, Umut Arik, Turkey's de facto ambassador to Taiwan, said yesterday.

Having attended a cultural program presented by Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the city's Cultural Affairs Bureau Director, Liao Hsien-hao (廖咸浩), Arik said he would like to bring some of Turkey's best pianists, violinists or literary figures to the city.

During an interview with Lee Chang-kuei (李長貴), president of the Taipei Times, Arik expressed concern that the way major international news agencies present Turkey has erroneously led people to associate his country with terrorism and earthquakes.

Six million Taiwanese travel abroad every year, but travel to Turkey peaked seven years ago and the number of Taiwanese traveling there amounted only to 14,000.

"The tourism season is about to start. We are telling everybody Turkey is a nice country, but people tend to link Turkey with terrorists and earthquakes," Arik said.

Arik noted Turks nowadays are quite disturbed by the treatment they receive from some countries' security authorities. "As a Turk, you are considered to be a potential terrorist," he said.

Asked how Turkey will address tourists' worries about terrorist attacks after the bombing of the British consulate in Istanbul, Arik said that compared to London, Istanbul is a relatively safe place.

Last year alone, he said, Northern Irish and Arab terrorists set off six bombs in London. "But no one stops going to London," Arik said.

"I hope people do not stop coming to Taiwan because President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) were shot," Arik joked.

Taiwanese people's limited understanding of Turkey is one of the main factors resulting in the low numbers of Taiwanese tourists who visit Turkey, he said.

Arik, who started his career as a journalist, believes that Taiwanese people's lack of knowledge about Turkey is not their fault.

"It is the fault of the international news agencies," he said.

"The problems we have with them bleed into the Taiwanese press and give Turkey the image in Taiwan of a remote Islamic country with camels walking around."

People here get the impression that Turkish women still walk on the street with their faces veiled, with only their eyes visible, "like horrible creatures or extraterrestrials out of science fiction," Arik said.

In fact, Turkish women are free to dress as fashionably as they like. "The shortest skirts, I tell you, can be found in Ankara," he said.

Last year, a hotel in Istanbul was chosen as the best in the world, but the news did not appear in any Taiwanese newspaper, according to Arik.

The fact that Alexander the Great lived in Turkey and that St. Paul once preached and resided in the country are little known among Taiwanese, Arik said. Turkey, he said, is actually a country rich in scenic beauty, rather than one with vast deserts and palm trees.

Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism promotes cuisine, hot springs and spas, yachting, mountaineering, rafting, caving, wildlife and plateaus as the country's special travel attractions.

"Taiwanese are now very fond of places of historical interest," Arik said. Noting the oldest settlements in Turkey date back to 9,976BC, he said Turkey boasts a history nearly 12,000 years long.
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