When Diplomacy Forgets Its Own Labour History: A Note to Ankara from Colombo
Diplomatic Correspondent
At a roundtable hosted by the Pathfinder Foundation, Turkish Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Semih Lütfü Turgut, offered a single-word verdict on Sri Lanka’s investment climate: “difficult.” Pressed to elaborate, he cited three familiar complaints—small market size, complex bureaucracy, and outward migration of skilled labour. The remarks were delivered with the confidence of a man diagnosing a foreign economy from a comfortable distance. What was conspicuously absent, however, was historical perspective—particularly Turkey’s own.
The Ambassador appears to have forgotten a central chapter of modern Turkish economic history: the mass migration of millions of Turkish citizens to Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, and other parts of Europe beginning in the 1960s and peaking in the 1970s. These Gastarbeiter were not exported as high-value human capital. They were, by European design and Turkish circumstance, overwhelmingly unskilled or semi-skilled labourers—steelworkers, miners, factory hands—sent abroad precisely because the domestic economy could not absorb them productively at home.
That migration did not render Turkey “uninvestable.” Nor did it justify foreign ambassadors dismissing Ankara’s prospects as structurally “difficult.” On the contrary, remittances from those workers helped stabilise Turkey’s balance of payments for decades. Over time, Turkey industrialised, diversified, and built manufacturing depth—sometimes successfully, sometimes unevenly—but always with the clear understanding that labour mobility is a feature of global capitalism, not a uniquely Sri Lankan pathology.
It is therefore curious that a Turkish diplomat would frame Sri Lanka’s current labour outflows as an exceptional weakness rather than a transitional phenomenon common to middle-income economies. Sri Lanka’s skilled migration today mirrors Turkey’s experience yesterday. If anything, it strengthens the case for inward foreign direct investment, not against it.
The “small market” argument fares no better. Sri Lanka has never marketed itself as a closed, consumption-heavy economy. Its comparative advantage lies in access, logistics, and trade architecture. Through its Free Trade Agreement with India—and proximity to South Asian supply chains—Sri Lanka offers a platform economy, not a captive domestic one. Turkish firms manufacturing air-conditioning units, electrical appliances, automotive components, or even dual-use drone technologies could locate assembly or component plants in Sri Lanka and export competitively into India and the wider region. This is precisely the model Turkey itself pursued with the European Union customs union—without full EU membership.
Which brings us to the question Ankara prefers not to answer: if Turkey’s investment climate is so compelling, why has the European Union still not allowed Turkey to accede? Bureaucracy? Regulatory divergence? Rule-of-law concerns? Currency instability? Persistent macroeconomic imbalances? These are not abstract talking points; they are active constraints that have kept Turkey in a prolonged antechamber outside the EU.
At present, Turkey is grappling with a severe liquidity and currency crisis, high inflation, capital controls by stealth, and declining investor confidence. Turkish capital is not merely looking outward—it is actively seeking safer jurisdictions abroad. In that context, for a Turkish ambassador to lecture Sri Lanka on “difficulty” without acknowledging his own country’s financial stress appears less like candid assessment and more like selective amnesia.
To be clear, Sri Lanka does have bureaucratic friction. No serious observer denies this. But bureaucracy is not destiny. It is reformable—and, crucially, it is navigable by investors who understand emerging markets. Turkish conglomerates, seasoned in operating across Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, are hardly strangers to complex regulatory environments. If anything, they are better equipped than most.
Ambassador Turgut did identify areas of potential cooperation—tourism, textiles, and strategic garment partnerships. These are sensible suggestions, though hardly ambitious. Turkey’s industrial capabilities extend far beyond fabric and footfall. It manufactures white goods, defence electronics, energy systems, and transport equipment at scale. If Ankara truly views Sri Lanka as a partner rather than a footnote, the conversation should be about factories, technology transfer, and regional export strategies—not polite pessimism.
Even the Ambassador’s remarks on tea trade, lamenting Sri Lanka’s loss of market share to Kenya due to price pressures, miss the strategic point. Value addition, branding, and joint ventures—areas where Turkish firms have experience—could reverse that trend. Complaining about prices without proposing industrial solutions adds little to bilateral relations.
Diplomacy, at its best, is informed realism grounded in self-awareness. Before declaring another country’s investment climate “difficult,” it may be prudent for Ankara’s representatives to revisit Turkey’s own economic journey—its labour exports, its reform struggles, its EU impasse, and its present liquidity constraints.
Sri Lanka does not need flattery. It needs serious investors. If Turkey wishes to be one, it should come with factories, capital, and long-term intent—not one-word verdicts.