Abstract:

At the end of 1964, Turkey decided to send seven Goodwill Missions to Asia, Africa, South and Central America and Arab countries in order to explain its views, attitudes and demands on the Cyprus issue and to promote Turkey in all its aspects. It was expected from the work of these delegations, which consisted of deputies, professors, ambassadors and journalists, who went to more than seventy countries, as a result of the support of Turkey's theses, especially in the votes to be held in the United Nations General Assembly on the Cyprus issue. However, in the Political Commission of the United Nations General Assembly held on December 17, 1965, a bill that envisaged the determination of the future of Cyprus in accordance with Makarios' theses was accepted as a result of the voting. In the voting, where 47 countries voted in favor of the bill and 51 countries abstained, only 6 countries, including Turkey, voted against it. This result has been a political earthquake for Turkish foreign policy. The expected support for Turkey's Cyprus thesis did not come from the African, Latin American and Arab countries visited by the Goodwill Delegations. On the contrary, although the desired result could not be obtained in the UN vote, it has been put forward that the visits of Goodwill Delegations are beneficial in terms of getting to know the relevant countries better, seeing how Turkey is viewed, and learning what should be done in terms of developing bilateral relations. The work of the Goodwill Committees has also found extensive coverage in the Turkish press. Journalist Nilüfer Yalçın, who was also included in the Goodwill Mission sent to the Middle East, shared her contacts in detail with her articles published in a series in the Milliyet newspaper. In this article, the Goodwill Delegations initiative will be discussed mainly through Yalçın's series of articles, and why this initiative was undertaken, how it was carried out, and what effects it had on Turkish foreign policy will be discussed.

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