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• Turkey aspires to emerge as an AI-enabled middle power. Its main advantage is the ability to add selected AI tools to areas where it is already strong, especially defence manufacturing, unmanned systems and regional security cooperation.

• Turkey’s position in AI is uneven. It is stronger in applications and systems integration than in advanced chips, computing infrastructure, cloud capacity or specialised talent. For Ankara, strategic autonomy is therefore less about becoming self-sufficient and more about managing dependence.

• Defence offers Turkey the clearest way to turn AI into geopolitical influence. As military systems become more software-driven, defence exports can create longer relationships through training, software updates, data management and cybersecurity.

• At the same time, AI creates a new dependency problem. More advanced systems require more energy, better chips, greater computing capacity and continued access to trusted NATO and European technology networks. Strategic autonomy may therefore depend as much on reliable partnerships as on domestic production.

• Turkey’s biggest limits may be political and institutional rather than technical. Brain drain weakens the talent base, economic instability makes long-term investment harder, and an unpredictable foreign policy can reduce the trust needed for sensitive cooperation in AI, defence and data.

Read here in pdf the Policy paper by Ahmet Erdi Öztürk, Non-Resident Senior Scholar, Turkey Programme.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS BECOMING part of international power, not simply another technology sector. Much of the debate still focuses on which states can build frontier models, produce advanced chips or command huge computing resources. That makes sense when discussing the United States and China, while the European Union has tried to shape the field through regulation and standards (Landwehr-Matlé, Oppermann and Lambach, 2026). But this framework is less useful for middle powers. Turkey does not need to reproduce the whole AI ecosystem of the leading powers. The more relevant question is whether it can acquire and use selected technologies in areas where it already has an advantage. For this reason, Turkey is better understood as a possible AI-enabled middle power: a state that can turn selective technological capabilities into military, economic and diplomatic leverage.

This argument fits closely with the debate on strategic autonomy. In Turkish foreign policy, the term usually describes Ankara’s efforts to gain more room for manoeuvre while remaining inside Western security and economic structures. Öniş and Kutlay (2021) situate this strategy in the context of a more post-Western international order, where Turkey tries to diversify its partnerships and reduce excessive dependence on traditional centres of power. AI makes this harder. It relies on advanced chips, computing power, cloud services, electricity, data, software and highly skilled people. For Turkey, technological autonomy cannot realistically mean self-sufficiency; it means retaining access to critical technologies, limiting vulnerability and preventing outside actors from using technological bottlenecks as political pressure.

Recent work on digital sovereignty points in the same direction. Weymouth (2025) argues that competition over AI infrastructure is encouraging the formation of techno-blocs, as states try to secure key resources and reduce dependence on foreign suppliers. Brown and Ozluk (2026) make a similar point about Turkey. They describe its AI strategy as a search for sovereignty that still requires cooperation with larger regulatory and technological systems. The key point is simple: technological sovereignty is not a choice between dependence and independence. For a middle power, it is about controlling some critical areas while managing dependence in others.

The recent report by the National Intelligence Academy (Milli İstihbarat Akademisi, MİA) shows that this way of thinking is also emerging inside Turkey’s strategic community. The report does not reduce AI competition to software and algorithms; it also highlights chips, critical minerals, energy, data infrastructure and robotics (Milli İstihbarat Akademisi, 2026). This is useful, but the next question is how Turkey’s strengths and weaknesses are distributed across these areas. One way to see this is as an AI power stack. At the top of the supply chain are semiconductors, high-performance computing, energy and cloud infrastructure. In the middle are data, software and AI models. At the downstream end are sector-specific applications, systems integration and the ability to turn technology into practical results.

Turkey’s position is highly uneven. Its main weaknesses are upstream. It does not have a globally competitive advanced-chip industry, it does not control major cloud or GPU infrastructure, and it remains dependent on international supply chains. Talent is another problem. 

Seen this way, Turkey’s position is highly uneven. Its main weaknesses are upstream. It does not have a globally competitive advanced-chip industry, it does not control major cloud or GPU infrastructure, and it remains dependent on international supply chains. Talent is another problem. AI requires specialised researchers, data scientists and technical managers who can connect research with industrial and military use. Brown and Ozluk (2026) are therefore right to stress human capital and institutional capacity. These weaknesses matter even more as access to critical technologies becomes increasingly political.

Strategic technological power does not come only from producing the best algorithm. It also stems from connecting software to platforms, sensors, communications, doctrine and operational practice.

Turkey looks stronger further downstream. Over the past two decades it has built a substantial defence-industrial ecosystem linking state procurement, large defence firms, newer technology companies and export markets. AI can be added to this existing base in areas such as unmanned systems, intelligence processing, sensors, radar, electronic warfare and command-and-control. The key distinction is between invention and integration. Strategic technological power does not come only from producing the best algorithm. It also stems from connecting software to platforms, sensors, communications, doctrine and operational practice. Gormus (2025) shows this in the Turkish case, arguing that while AI-enabled military capabilities may support strategic autonomy, they can also create new interoperability problems within NATO.

This broader viewpoint also explains why Turkey should not be judged against the global technology leaders alone. Regional powers have very different strengths. Israel has a deeper research, cybersecurity and high-tech ecosystem. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have more capital, abundant energy and strong partnerships with major technology companies. Turkey’s advantage is different: it combines a sizeable defence industry, manufacturing capacity, operational experience with unmanned systems and a broad export network. Technological sophistication and strategic effect do not always move together. A state can remain dependent on advanced inputs while still producing major strategic effects, if it can successfully integrate imported and domestic components into usable systems.

This dynamic fits a wider debate on middle-power agency. Middle powers are often described as states that hedge between larger powers. Mishra (2026), however, uses the idea of positional power to show how they can benefit from rivalry and institutional competition. Viewed through this lens, Turkey’s technological position does depend in part on this kind of networked position: NATO membership, economic links with Europe, partnerships in the Gulf, ties with Asian suppliers and a widening defence-export geography. Now AI is poised to make these connections more valuable; unlike one-off hardware sales, modern military systems require ongoing relationships around software, training, data, cybersecurity, and interoperability.

An AI-enabled middle power can therefore be defined as a state that does not control the whole AI ecosystem, but has enough industrial and institutional capacity to turn selected technologies into strategic effects. For Turkey, three questions matter most. First, how exposed is it to external restrictions? Second, how well can it integrate AI into sectors where it already has advantages? Third, do these capabilities improve Ankara’s bargaining power with allies, rivals and customers?

More AI may strengthen Turkey’s defence and security autonomy, but it may also deepen dependence on foreign chips, computing infrastructure and specialised software. 

This leads to a central paradox. More AI may strengthen Turkey’s defence and security autonomy, but it may also deepen dependence on foreign chips, computing infrastructure and specialised software. Strategic autonomy in the AI era is therefore not about escaping interdependence; it is about organising it. The MİA report is right to focus on the material foundations of technological competition (Milli İstihbarat Akademisi, 2026). The middle-power perspective adds another point: these capabilities matter geopolitically only when they create leverage. The challenge facing Turkey is to reduce upstream vulnerability while using its downstream strengths to improve military capacity and foreign-policy influence.

From Drones to Algorithms: Defence, Regional Competition and Foreign-Policy Leverage

Turkey is not building military AI from scratch; it is adding new functions to an existing network of drones, sensors, electronic warfare, communications and command systems.

If Turkey is to become an AI-enabled middle power, defence is the most obvious space in which to test the idea. Because Turkey’s defence transformation began well before the current AI boom, AI is entering a sector that already has experience of localisation, procurement reform, battlefield use and exports. This matters. Turkey is not building military AI from scratch; it is adding new functions to an existing network of drones, sensors, electronic warfare, communications and command systems. The shift from heavy import dependence towards greater domestic production has already tied industrial policy more closely to foreign policy (Ciftci, 2023; Baysal, 2025). AI may deepen this link, because success increasingly depends on connecting sensors, data, software and weapons into faster and more effective systems.Turkey

Automation, autonomy and AI should not be treated as the same thing. An automated system follows predefined rules. An autonomous system can respond to its environment and carry out some tasks with less human input. An AI-enabled military system uses tools such as machine learning, computer vision or predictive analytics to process information and support decisions. This distinction matters because drones are often described as AI systems, when many are mainly automated or remotely controlled. The more important military uses of AI are likely to be in sensor fusion, intelligence analysis, target recognition, mission planning, electronic warfare, logistics and human-machine cooperation (Johnson, 2026; Omer, 2026). The main advantage may not be removing humans from the process, but helping them make sense of large amounts of battlefield information more quickly.

Turkey’s defence sector is already moving in this direction. Baykar receives most of the international attention, but the picture is much broader. TUSAŞ produces larger unmanned systems including ANKA, AKSUNGUR and ANKA III. ASELSAN provides much of the radar, electro-optics, communications, electronic warfare and command infrastructure needed for networked operations. HAVELSAN focuses heavily on software, simulation and command systems, while STM works on tactical UAVs, loitering munitions, maritime systems, swarms and AI-supported decision tools. STM, for example, has highlighted deep-learning image processing, sensor fusion and autonomous mission allocation, and in May 2026 demonstrated a 20-unit KARGU swarm with live ammunition during EFES-2026. None of this proves that Turkey has achieved military AI superiority. What it does show is that AI-related functions are spreading across several firms and operational areas, rather than being confined to one flagship project.

Turkey’s earlier drone experience helps explain why this matters. Turkish UAVs had effects well beyond their cost in Syria, Libya and the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, although drones alone did not determine the outcomes of hose conflicts. Rossiter and Cannon (2022) show how Turkey learned and adapted after early operational use, while Hwang and Song (2022) link drones to Ankara’s ability to intervene at relatively low political and financial cost and then convert military visibility into diplomatic influence. More recent work also warns against technological determinism: drones matter because of how they interact with doctrine, other military capabilities and enemy weaknesses (Hutto and Rogers, 2026). The same caution applies to AI. Turkey’s next advantage is unlikely to come from a single autonomous platform; it will depend on whether AI improves the way intelligence, electronic warfare, targeting, communications and command systems work together.

These capabilities also matter for foreign policy. Defence exports can create influence that goes beyond battlefield performance. Boyle and Wolfe (2026) show that drone exporters use sales not only to achieve commercial reasons, but also to build political relationships and longer-term dependencies. Turkish deals may include training, joint production, technology transfer, end-use arrangements and continued software support. AI can make these links deeper: as systems become more software-dependent, suppliers and customers remain connected through updates, data management, cybersecurity, maintenance and interoperability. Defence diplomacy can therefore become less about selling a platform and more about providing an ecosystem. This does not guarantee political alignment, but it can make the relationship longer and more difficult to replace.

Turkey is also part of broader regional competition over military technology. Israel remains ahead in advanced research, cybersecurity, sensors and military-technological integration. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are following a different model, using capital, energy and partnerships with global firms to develop their AI and defence sectors. The UAE’s EDGE and Saudi Arabia’s SAMI are examples of this state-backed approach, although both still rely heavily on foreign technology and partnerships (Rózsa, 2025). Iran follows another path, one shaped by sanctions and pressure for self-reliance but constrained by limited resources. Atwood (2025) shows the gap between Iran’s official claims of AI sovereignty and the more fragmented reality of its computing infrastructure, data centres and digital labour. These differences make a simple regional ranking misleading. Israel’s model is research-intensive, the Gulf model capital-intensive, Iran’s sanction-driven, and Turkey’s more focused on integration and manufacturing.

Turkey’s potential advantage is therefore not that it has the region’s most advanced AI ecosystem; it is that it may be able to combine sufficient technological sophistication with defence products that are scalable, relatively affordable and operationally tested. 

Turkey’s potential advantage is therefore not that it has the region’s most advanced AI ecosystem; it is that it may be able to combine sufficient technological sophistication with defence products that are scalable, relatively affordable and operationally tested. This matters because strategic utility is not the same as technological quality. Turkish drones expanded partly because they filled a market gap between advanced but tightly restricted Western systems and cheaper alternatives with different capabilities. AI-enabled systems could follow a similar path if Turkey can improve intelligence processing, autonomy and electronic warfare without making its products too expensive for existing customers. The wider growth of the defence sector has already become part of Ankara’s more assertive foreign-policy toolkit (Ciftci, 2023; Baysal, 2025).

The regional effects will be broad but uneven. In the Gulf, AI-related defence cooperation could support Turkey’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but Turkish firms will also face strong local competitors. In North Africa, defence ties can reinforce Ankara’s political and security presence, especially where affordable unmanned and electronic systems are attractive. The South Caucasus offers the clearest example of defence technology creating political visibility, while Central Asia connects defence cooperation with wider Turkic and connectivity agendas. The Black Sea is more constrained by Russia, NATO and the war in Ukraine. The Middle East is also highly competitive, with Israel, Iran, Gulf states and outside powers all active there. Turkey’s technological reach should therefore not be confused with regional dominance. Its value lies in giving Ankara more ways to enter security relationships, strengthen partnership and remain part of regional strategic calculations.

The broader point is that AI may change the political economy of Turkish defence influence before it changes the regional military balance. Turkey’s drone experience showed that a middle power could turn a specialised technology into operational reputation, exports and diplomatic access (Rossiter and Cannon, 2022; Soyaltin-Colella and Demiryol, 2023). AI could deepen this leverage because it ties hardware to software, data and continuing technical support. But the opportunity is conditional: it depends on reliable integration, affordability, battlefield performance and continued access to the advanced technologies on which these systems rely. AI does not replace Turkey’s defence-industrial model; it makes that model both more valuable and more vulnerable.

The New Dependency Paradox

Turkey’s growing use of AI in defence creates a problem that is easy to miss in discussions about localisation. Because, while more domestic production may reduce dependence on imported weapons, it may also increase dependence on the infrastructure needed to run advanced systems. AI requires much more than software. It needs advanced chips, computing power, cloud infrastructure, data centres, reliable electricity, cooling, skilled people and secure networks. Weymouth (2025) argues that control over these concentrated supply chains is becoming a source of geopolitical power. For Turkey, the question is therefore not only how much AI it can put into defence systems, but whether it can retain access to the infrastructure those systems need during periods of geopolitical tension.

Energy is central to this problem because AI is highly electricity-intensive. Indeed, the International Energy Agency estimates that global data-centre electricity use could rise from about 485 TWh in 2025 to roughly 950 TWh by 2030, with AI-focused facilities growing even faster (IEA, 2026). While Turkey does not need to copy the huge computing centres being built in the United States or the Gulf, the price, availability and reliability of electricity will nonetheless increasingly shape its technological capacity. Consequently, the advent of AI inextricably links energy security with technology policy. Expanding domestic computing requires generation capacity, stable grids, storage, cooling and some protection from imported-energy shocks. Turkey’s investment in renewables and nuclear power may therefore have a direct technological value. The relationship also works both ways: AI can help with forecasting, grid management and infrastructure efficiency (IEA, 2025).

A further issue is that Turkey’s energy position is itself uneven. The country has expanded its renewable capacity and is adding nuclear power, but it still depends heavily on imported energy. 

A further issue is that Turkey’s energy position is itself uneven. The country has expanded its renewable capacity and is adding nuclear power, but it still depends heavily on imported energy. This matters because AI infrastructure needs a stable and predictable supply of electricity. A sudden rise in energy prices, pressure on gas imports or problems with the grid would not only affect households and industry; it could also limit the expansion of data centres and high-performance computing. In that sense, energy dependence can become a technological dependence as well. The more Turkey wants to build domestic AI capacity, the more important it becomes to reduce exposure to external energy shocks and strengthen the resilience of the electricity system.

There is also a regional dimension. Gulf states have an obvious advantage in their ability to combine cheap energy, capital and large-scale investment in data centres and computing infrastructure. Turkey is unlikely to be able to compete with them on scale alone. Its advantage may instead come from combining a relatively diversified energy mix with industrial capacity, proximity to European markets and existing links to NATO and EU technological networks. This could make Turkey more attractive as a regional location for selected AI- and defence-related infrastructure, particularly if it can improve grid reliability and regulatory predictability. Energy policy therefore becomes part of a wider strategic question: not simply how much electricity Turkey can produce, but whether it can provide the stable, secure and internationally connected infrastructure needed for an AI-intensive economy.

This creates a second layer of dependence. Reducing reliance on imported defence platforms can simply move the vulnerability further upstream, to chips and computing capacity in particular. Advanced semiconductors are particularly sensitive because production is concentrated in a small number of countries and depends on highly specialised equipment and supply chains. Rone (2025) shows how semiconductor policy in Europe has become closely linked to national security. Export controls make the issue even more important. Weymouth (2025) argues that controls on chips and digital infrastructure are helping to reorganise technological interdependence into competing blocs. For Turkey, which has tried to maintain room for manoeuvre between Western institutions and a wider set of partners, this could make technological hedging more difficult. In other words, greater technological sophistication may actually make strategic autonomy harder to sustain.

This is why Turkey’s NATO membership and its links to European technology networks can also be assets. NATO’s revised AI strategy places interoperability, good-quality data, testing, responsible use and an AI-ready workforce at the centre of allied planning. It also recognises the energy demands of AI and the need to protect systems from adversarial interference (NATO, 2024). Participation can give Turkey access to standards, testing networks, DIANA centres, industry links and shared practices that would be expensive to build alone. The paradox is that deeper participation in allied technology networks may increase Turkey’s practical autonomy. In this sense, autonomy can come through institutional embeddedness rather than separation.

That embeddedness also creates obligations, however. NATO interoperability is no longer only about whether systems can communicate; it increasingly involves shared standards for testing, data quality, explainability, accountability and human control. NATO’s Principles of Responsible Use stress lawfulness, accountability, traceability, reliability, governability and bias mitigation (NATO, 2024). EU regulation adds a further layer by linking access to markets and technological networks to risk management and technical standards (Kilian, Jäck and Ebel, 2025). Turkey could therefore face difficulties if military AI develops more rapidly than its systems for verification, accountability and regulation. Governance is not simply a normative issue here; it can directly affect interoperability, procurement and access to trusted technology networks.

Turkey has long struggled to retain its most highly skilled professionals. Research on brain drain shows how institutional and labour-market conditions shape the decision of skilled workers to leave or return.

Human capital is another possible bottleneck. Defence AI requires people who combine machine-learning skills with engineering, cybersecurity and an understanding of military systems. Turkey has long struggled to retain its most highly skilled professionals. Research on brain drain shows how institutional and labour-market conditions shape the decision of skilled workers to leave or return (Elveren and Toksöz, 2019). This matters even more in AI, where specialists can find highly paid jobs in the United States, Europe and increasingly the Gulf. Investment in hardware will not be enough if Turkey cannot retain the people needed to develop, maintain and improve these systems.

AI also creates new security risks that cannot be measured simply by looking at industrial capacity. Machine-learning systems can be manipulated through bad data or adversarial inputs. More networked military platforms create more cyber vulnerabilities. Faster decision-support systems may also reduce the time available for human judgement in a crisis. NATO therefore treats adversarial AI, system protection and testing as core aspects of military AI readiness (NATO, 2024). There is also a domestic issue: technologies developed for defence and security can expand state surveillance, making questions of accountability and proportionality increasingly important.

Turkey’s AI position is therefore shaped by a dependency paradox: the more successfully Ankara adds AI to domestic defence and security systems, the more important resources it does not fully control become: energy, chips, computing capacity, software, skilled labour and international standards. This does not make technological autonomy impossible, but it changes what autonomy should mean. The realistic goal is resilience, in the form more diverse supply chains, reliable energy, secure computing, access to allied innovation networks and credible governance. Turkey’s AI power will depend as much on how it manages these dependencies as on the technologies it develops.

The Political Limits of Turkey’s AI Ambitions

Turkey already has several of the ingredients it needs to become an AI-enabled middle power: a large defence industry, experience with unmanned systems, manufacturing capacity, NATO membership and a growing network of defence partners. But technology alone will not decide whether these advantages produce lasting geopolitical influence. The biggest obstacles may lie in the political, economic and institutional environment surrounding innovation.

The first problem is human capital. Advanced AI depends on strong universities, scientific freedom, international research links and the ability to attract and keep skilled people. Turkey’s authoritarian turn makes this more difficult. Pressure on universities, weaker institutional autonomy and doubts about meritocracy can encourage researchers, engineers and other highly educated professionals to leave (Aydin, 2021; Elveren and Toksöz, 2019). Recent research also finds that brain drain has had a measurable negative effect on technological progress in Turkey, where it has weakened both the domestic talent pool and the R&D capacity (Mike et al., 2025). This creates a basic contradiction: a state seeking technological sovereignty may be losing one of the resources it needs most.

Though Turkey’s defence industry shows that concentrated state support can produce strong results in selected areas, AI requires a much wider and more expensive ecosystem. With macroeconomic instability and competing public spending priorities, sustaining investment across the whole chain will be difficult. 

A second problem is economic capacity. Competitive AI requires long-term spending on computing infrastructure, data centres, energy, research and specialised staff. Though Turkey’s defence industry shows that concentrated state support can produce strong results in selected areas, AI requires a much wider and more expensive ecosystem. With macroeconomic instability and competing public spending priorities, sustaining investment across the whole chain will be difficult. Turkey may therefore develop pockets of advanced capability, especially in defence, without building the wider infrastructure needed to support them over time.

Foreign policy creates a third constraint. Turkey is geopolitically important because of its location, NATO membership and military capabilities. That makes Ankara difficult for both allies and rivals to ignore. But being indispensable is not the same as being trusted. Transactional diplomacy, changing alignments and repeated disputes with Western partners can create short-term bargaining power while also making Turkey look unpredictable. This matters in an AI environment that is increasingly built around trusted networks, sensitive data, interoperability and controlled access to advanced technology. Positional power is useful only if partners believe that cooperation with Ankara will remain sufficiently predictable.

Turkey’s AI future therefore depends on much more than successful defence platforms. The key question is whether technological ambition can be matched by institutional quality, economic resilience and international trust. 

Turkey’s AI future therefore depends on much more than successful defence platforms. The key question is whether technological ambition can be matched by institutional quality, economic resilience and international trust. AI could strengthen strategic autonomy and increase Turkey’s middle-power influence, but authoritarianism, brain drain, economic weakness and declining trust could also place a clear ceiling on those ambitions. The real competition is not only over technology; it is also over the political and institutional capacity to sustain it.

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The peace process in the autonomous region will continue long after the votes have been counted and a new government formed.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 2026 (IPS)

When over 130 world leaders arrive in New York for the high-level segment of the General Assembly next week– it will be rare to hear hard-hitting, headline-grabbing political statements from the podium.

The speeches before the 193-member General Assembly, and UN press briefings that occasionally follow, are mostly long-winded and monotonously boring. The exceptions, however, are rare.

When Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi visited the UN in September 2009, a report in the London Guardian said he “grabbed his 15 minutes of fame at the UN building in New York and ran with it. He ran with it so hard he stretched it to an hour and 40 minutes, six times longer than his allotted slot, to the dismay of UN organizers”.

Gaddafi fully lived up to his reputation for eccentricity, bloody-mindedness and extreme verbiage, as he tore up a copy of the UN charter in front of startled delegates, accused the Security Council of being an al-Qaida like terrorist body, called for George Bush and Tony Blair to be put on trial for the Iraq war, demanded $7.7 trillion in compensation for the ravages of colonialism on Africa, and wondered whether swine flu was a biological weapon created in a military laboratory.

Incidentally, according to one news report, there were 112 different spellings of the Libyan leader’s name, both in English and Arabic, including Muammar el-Qaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi, Muammar al-Gathafi, Muammar El Kadhafi, Moammar el Kazzafi, Moamer, El Qathafi, Mu’Ammar, Gadafi, and Moamar Gaddafi, amongst others.

The Wall Street Journal ran a cartoon making fun of the multiple spellings, with a visiting reporter, on a one-on-one interview in Tripoli, told the Libyan leader: ”My editor sent me to find out whether you are Qaddafi, Khaddafi, Gadafi, Qathafi or Kadhafi?”

A memorable Soviet-US confrontation took place at the General Assembly hall in October 1960 during the height of the Cold War, but this time it was between the USSR and the Philippines, considered a close US ally at that time.

The Filipino delegate Lorenzo Sumulong, lashed out at the USSR, pointing out that “the peoples of Eastern Europe and elsewhere (under Soviet domination) have been deprived of the free exercise of their civil and political rights and which have been swallowed up, so to speak, by the Soviet Union”.

Incensed by the remark, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who was leading the Soviet delegation, hit back with a vengeance, describing the Filipino as “a jerk, a stooge, and a lackey”, and a “toady of American imperialism” –words that are rarely heard in the General Assembly or the Security Council these days. Forget the North Korean refrain: “Running Dogs of Imperialism”.

But an equally legendary story was the longstanding rumor that Khrushchev removed his shoe and kept banging on his desk, to be recognized, on a point of order.

The only evidence was a single photo in circulation, which was dismissed by some as a fake concocted by US intelligence – and that was long before the age of digital technology and photo-shopping.

The British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who was at the podium, jokingly responded to the Soviet leader’s angry outbursts by famously asking the Speaker: “I should like that to be translated, if I may,’ amid loud laughter.

UN speeches are translated simultaneously into six of the UN’s official languages— Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish– but never the banging of shoes.

In another bygone era, Ugandan leader Idi Amin caused a stir when he tried to praise British Prime Minister Edward Heath. He told the assembly that Heath was just like Adolf Hitler—before quickly insisting he meant Winston Churchill.

And back in October 2006, the civilian government in Thailand was ousted when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in New York to address the General Assembly. Instead of returning home, where he was likely to face charges of corruption, Thaksin opted to fly to London, where he was in virtual political exile.

The bloodless military coup against a democratically elected government in Thailand forced the United States to review its military relations and suspend aid to one of Washington’s long-standing political allies in Southeast Asia.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, which was seeking UN sanctions against the military government in neighboring Myanmar, said the Thai military coup was a “U-turn” for democracy in that politically stable region.

Still, the best guarantee for survival — for visiting world leaders during the General Assembly sessions– was to include all their military leaders, including the chiefs of the armed forces, the navy and the air force, in the country’s UN delegation so that they will be within sight at the General Assembly Hall – and not back home taking over the leadership of the country in military coups.

During the General Assembly sessions, the IPS office on the UN’s fourth floor was an occasional meeting place for representatives of liberation movements accredited to the UN, including the PLO and FRETILIN.

One regular visitor was Jose Ramos-Horta, designated as foreign minister in the government-in-exile set up by the liberation movement FRETILIN (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor). Winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize and later president of East Timor (2007-2012). Ramos-Horta, according to a widely circulated anecdote, was at a dinner in a restaurant frequented by delegates, in the UN neighborhood, where waiters politely asked guests from what country they were from.

When asked, he proudly claimed he was from East Timor, (a former Portuguese possession that was under Indonesian control from 1975 to 1999). “So, you are an Eskimo?”, said the waiter displaying his geographical ignorance. “’No, no, no,” replied Ramos-Horta: “I am not an Eskimo, I am from a country called East Timor.”

After he completed his first presidency in 2012, he was appointed as the United Nations‘ Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS) in January 2013. When I met him outside the UN on First Avenue, I double checked the anecdote— and he confirmed it did happen. And we laughed.

Meanwhile, a security officer once recalled an incident where the prime minister from an African country, addressing the General Assembly, was heckled by a group of African students. As is usual with hecklers, the boisterous group was taken off the visitor’s gallery, grilled, photographer and banned from entering the UN premises. But about five years later, one of the hecklers returned to the UN —this time, as foreign minister of his country, and addressed the world body.

Besides Qaddafi, some of the military leaders who addressed the UN included Fidel Castro of Cuba, Amadou Toure of Mali (who assumed power following a coup in 1991 but later served as a democratically elected President), and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana (who seized power in 1979, executed former heads of state but later served as a civilian president voted into power in democratic elections).

Although PLO leader Yasser Arafat made it to the UN, some of the world’s most controversial leaders, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, and North Korea’s Kim il Sung and his grandson Kim Jong-un never made it to the UN.

When the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevara, once second-in-command to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was at the United Nations to address the General Assembly sessions back in 1964, the U.N. headquarters came under attack – literally. The speech by the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.

The anti-Castro forces in the United States, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had mounted an insidious campaign to stop Che Guevara from speaking. A 3.5-inch bazooka was fired at the 39-storeyed Secretariat building by the East River while a vociferous CIA-inspired anti-Castro, anti-Che Guevara demonstration was taking place outside the U.N. building on New York’s First Avenue and 42nd street.

But the rocket launcher – which was apparently not as sophisticated as today’s shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades – missed its target, rattled windows, and fell into the river about 200 yards from the building. One newspaper report described it as “one of the wildest episodes since the United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.”

As longtime U.N. staffers would recall, the failed 1964 bombing of the U.N. building took place when Che Guevara launched a blistering attack on U.S. foreign policy and denounced a proposed de-nuclearization pact for the Western hemisphere.

It was one of the first known politically motivated terrorist attacks on the United Nations. After his Assembly speech, Che Guevara was asked about the attack aimed at him. “The explosion has given the whole thing more flavor,” he joked, as he chomped on his Cuban cigar.

When he was told by a reporter that the New York City police had nabbed a woman, described as an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who had pulled out a hunting knife and jumped over the UN wall, intending to kill him, Che Guevara said: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”

This article contains excerpts from a book on the United Nations titled “No Comment—and Don’t Quote Me on That,” authored by Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at Inter Press Service news agency. A former member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the General Assembly sessions, he is a Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, New York, and twice (2012-2013) shared the gold medal for excellence in UN reporting awarded annually by the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA). The book is available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.amazon.com/No-Comment-dont-quote-that/dp/064811838X

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

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