While a great deal has come in from Turkey today in the way of pictures, there is not much text so far to accompany them. These two press releases just arrived. There will be more later.
Secretary Clinton Praises PNB Local Chapter in Turkey and New Coca-Cola Women's Empowerment Program
Media Note
Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the SpokespersonWashington, DCJuly 16, 2011
While in Turkey, Secretary Clinton praised the work being done by Turkey’s local chapter of Partners for a New Beginning (PNB), led by Rifat Hisarciklioglu, the President of TOBB and PNB Vice-Chairs Melih Gezer of Intel Turkey and Deniz Sungurlu of Cisco Turkey.
PNB Turkey is helping bring together The Coca-Cola Company, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, and TOBB Women's Entrepreneurship Board to launch an innovative public-private partnership that will promote entrepreneurship and cultivate business skills for women in Turkey. Starting this August, the first phase of The Women’s Entrepreneurship Program will give more than 60 women the chance to create new entrepreneurial opportunities and cultivate existing business ideas. Women will receive personalized business development training and coaching, and select participants will be provided with seed grants to support their own enterprise. Women executives from Coca-Cola Turkey will provide ongoing mentoring and technical assistance in areas such as marketing, project management, finance, and human resources. The Istanbul Chamber of Commerce will coordinate additional program partners and manage participant application, selection and monitoring.
Partners for a New Beginning is a collection of public-private partnerships committed to broadening and deepening engagement between the United States and local communities. It supports the vision of mutual interest and respect that was the landmark of President Obama’s June 2009 Cairo speech. PNB is chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, The Coca-Cola Company Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent, and Aspen Institute President and CEO Walter Isaacson. PNB works with partners in locally-owned and locally-driven chapters around the world -- including Algeria, Indonesia, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Pakistan, and the Palestinian Territories. PNB brings more partners together – from governments, civil society, NGOs, non-profits and businesses – to not only address local priorities, but to give more people the tools to lift up their families and their societies.
Her embassy meet-and-greets are typically among her last events on a visit. Since this came through a little while ago, we can guess that she is wrapping up the Turkish leg of her tour. She is due in Greece tomorrow. In addition to this visit, she gave a press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu and paid a visit to the patriarch. As remarks from those events arrive, I will post them as well as the photos.
Secretary Clinton Meets With the Staff and Families of Embassy Ankara and Consulate Istanbul
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of StateIstanbul, TurkeyJuly 16, 2011SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I am delighted to see all of you today on this beautiful, beautiful morning in Istanbul. I want to start by acknowledging and thanking Ambassador Ricciardone and Dr. Marie Ricciardone and Consul General Scott Kilner and Jan Kilner. I understand that they both started together in the Foreign Service with a posting in Istanbul, so it’s only fitting that they would be back here together.
But I came to thank all of you, American and Turkish alike. I want to thank you for what you do every single day to further this incredibly important relationship between the United States and Turkey. Here at this consulate, you are engaging in innovative public diplomacy programs directly with the Turkish people, you are issuing visas and running exchange programs, you are protecting U.S. citizens and providing adoption services, and you do all of this with limited resources and often under challenging circumstances. And I am very grateful to you because of the extraordinary professionalism that each and every one of you display.
And it’s not only what you do every day, it’s what you do in extraordinary times. When the demonstrations began in Egypt, you helped evacuate U.S. citizens. And then three weeks later, you did it again when the uprisings in Libya began. And you have demonstrated time and again that it’s not just the work that you each do, but your families as well have volunteered and staffed the phones and taken shifts at airports in order to accomplish the mission. I’m very proud of all the Americans from all of the agencies and departments of the United States Government who serve, and I am especially proud of our Turkish friends and colleagues.
I know Secretaries of State and ambassadors to Turkey come and go, but our locally employed staff are here providing the memory, the continuity, and the expertise. And I know some of you have worked here for decades, and there is one person who is not here because he’s waiting for me at my next stop, who I know is beloved by all of you. Ates Oner has spent almost 40 years serving this consulate. He seems to know everyone in the Turkish media. I witnessed that firsthand at the Libya Contact Group meeting as more people were coming up to shake his hand than certainly to shake mine. So I thank him, but I thank all of you for your hard work on behalf of the United States and Turkey. I am absolutely committed to making sure that we create better bonds, not just between our governments but between the Turkish and American people, and that is what you do every day.
So thank you very much, and let me come now and thank each of you personally for your service. (Applause.)
# # #
