United Nations Alliance of Civilizations High Representative and Former Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos invited on Friday Ambassador of Turkey to the Czech Republic Egemen Bağış to become a member of the newly established High Level Advisory Council of the UN Alliance of Civilizations.
According to a statement by the officials, Bağış and Moratinos had worked closely during the formation of the Alliance of Civilizations project, as close team members of the Prime Ministers of Turkey and Spain.
“During the period when José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was the Prime Minister of Spain, the project, which he and his then-counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, under the coordination of the late UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, had undertaken the role of an antidote to the clash of civilizations thesis,” the statement underlined.
“Minister Moratinos assumed the position of High Represantative of the Alliance of Civilizations of the United Nations with support of Turkey in January 2019 and in order to give momentum to the organization and to increase its effectiveness proposed to establish a High Level Advisory Council with the approval of the committee of the Foreign Ministers of all member countries,” the statement said.
Former EU Minister and the current Prague Ambassador of Turkey, Bağış will serve along with former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the former Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, former President Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan and other reputable statesmen who have served world peace and the concept of alliance of civilizations.
Members of the High Advisory Council will serve on a voluntary basis, the statement added.
According to diplomatic sources, Ambassador Bağış accepted the invitation after consulting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu who concurred with the appointment.
