EUROPE

NATO Officials Sing ‘We Are the World’ at Summit in Turkey

 
BY Reuters 1:04
NATO Ministers Sing ‘We Are the World’

NATO Ministers Sing ‘We Are the World’

NATO foreign ministers joined a Turkish band for a rendition of “We Are the World” after a dinner in Antalya, Turkey on Wednesday.
By Reuters on  May 14, 2015.Photo by Pool photo by Abdulhamid Hosbas.
In a scene captured on video by a Turkish news agency, a group of NATO foreign ministers and European officials performed a rousing, after-dinner version of “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity single, after a summit meeting in the resort town of Antalya on Wednesday.
Video taken from a report by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency showed the foreign ministers of Turkey and Greece — Mevlut Cavusoglu and Nikos Kotzias — swaying arm in arm and singing the line, “There’s a choice we’re making — we’re saving our own lives.” Just to their left, a singer encouraged NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, to join in.
According to Hurriyet, a Turkish newspaper, Mr. Cavusoglu, host of the dinner, invited his colleagues to join him onstage with members of a local band to sing a “song for peace.”
The image of harmony between the Greek and Turkish officials, who met earlier in the week in Ankara, was the focus of attention in the local press.
Online, the spectacle of officials from a military alliance joining together in the anthem written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie to generate funds for Africa was widely mocked.
The video also provided fodder for the Kremlin-owned broadcaster Russia Today, which published a collection of comments posted on social networks calling the NATO officials “warmongers” and “killers.”
Ms. Mogherini went to Turkey after briefing the United Nations Security Council on the E.U.’s planned response to the mass smuggling of African migrants attempting to reach Europe from Libya by crossing the Mediterranean in flimsy boats.
The plans under review include the possibility of European nations taking military action against migrant smuggling rings whose clients undertake the risky sea journey driven by the hope of securing asylum in Europe. Many have died at sea.