“Coffee Break with Hillary Clinton”![Secretary Clinton meets with Rifat Hisarciklioglu, Chair of PNB Turkey [State Department / Public Domain]](/wp-content/uploads/files/content/images/middle%20east%20strategy%20group/5945794687_1a24fc6b9f.jpg "Secretary Clinton meets with Rifat Hisarciklioglu, Chair of PNB Turkey [State Department / Public Domain]")
July 16, 2011 – Ceyazin Café – Istanbul, Turkey
The following are exerpts from Secretary Clinton’s interview with CNN-Turk and moderated by Sirin Payzin.
Secretary Clinton: “What I would like is to see more business men and women from the United States seeking investment, seeking partnerships, seeking joint ventures here with Turkish businesses. I just came from a group that has started here in Turkey called Partnerships for a New Beginning, which the United States is working with in order to really create more linkages between American business and Turkish business, and we are very encouraging of Turkish investment in the Middle East, in North Africa, because we think Turkish businesses have a lot to teach as well as to contribute to the economic growth in other countries as well as your own…
Secretary Clinton: “[In Turkey] there has to be an emphasis on creativity and innovation, and that means entrepreneurial energy. And we want to share ideas that we’ve learned over time in the United States by bringing entrepreneurs from the United States to meet with Turkish entrepreneurs, and to bring in young people, so that good ideas have somewhere to go, and they don’t just die or get shelved. So this Entrepreneurship Summit will be – I’m not – we don’t have the exact date yet, but it will be in fall. I will be sure – we’ll get the names of everybody here. We’ll be sure that you all are given notice of it through our Embassy.
“But I think it’s important as I look out at all of you and I see a group of very energetic and affluent and educated young people here in Turkey to be thinking about what do we do with all these millions of young people who are not educated, young women who don’t feel confident enough or encouraged enough to get into the job market. That’s a ticking time bomb, as we say. If we don’t have jobs – you saw what happened in Egypt – that was as much an economic revolution as a political revolution. You saw what happened in Tunisia. Turkey is a great example, so the more Turkey can demonstrate entrepreneurial activity, the more others can learn from you. And I think that’s something that we want to work with you on behalf of that partnership.
The full text of the interview is available here.