DIPLOMACY
INSIDE STORY
Rwanda can be
the Dubai of Africa, says
Turkish ambassador
Raif KARACA
When he first arrived in
Kigali close to two years
ago, the first ambassador
of Turkey to Rwanda,
Mehmet Raif Karaca,
spoke to Chief Executive's
Gilbert Mwijuke about
his love for Rwanda, what
his vision for Rwanda and
Turkey-Rwanda relations
is, and the role of diplomacy in solving global
problems.
Excerpts:
How long have you been in Rwanda? Have you
been here before and could you please tell us
about your career in diplomacy?
I have been here since December 2014 and it’s the
first time I came to Rwanda. I find Rwanda a very
beautiful, safe, and peaceful place with good weather, friendly people and low levels of crime – basically the country has everything to desire. I am enjoying my time in Rwanda so much that I am even
contemplating buying my retirement house here.
Regarding my career in diplomacy, I have been
in this profession for 32 years now. I am a career
diplomat who started out as a junior secretary at
the Turkish Embassy in London between 1986 and
1989 before heading to Indonesia from 1989 to
1992. After that I went back to Turkey before returning to Indonesia from 1994 to 1999. I was then
called back to our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in
2001 I was deployed to Tokyo. In 2007 I was named
Consul General in Hong Kong, where I stayed until
2011. Now I am in Rwanda.
36 - CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Is there one person or event in Rwanda that influenced Turkey to send here an ambassador?
How so?
Not really. As the 17th biggest economy in the world,
we don’t have the luxury not to have economic and
diplomatic relations with any country in the world.
Rwanda opened an embassy in Turkey in 2012 and
we wanted to reciprocate that almost immediately
but because we have recently opened many embassies in Africa, we had some personnel and l gistical
problems. But Turkish Airlines didn’t wait for the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs; they opened a route to
Kigali immediately. They said that, “We believe that
Rwanda is a very important country in this region;
it’s like a magnet in the middle of Africa so there is
a lot of potential in the country.”
Besides, we all know that Rwanda is the rising star of
Africa; the statistics speak for themselves. We have
a lot of hope in Rwanda, and rightly so. The country may not have mineral resources, but the human