Norway has played mediator role in several disputes and its capital Oslo has been home to several peace talks such as the one between Israel and Palestine.

The Bureau of Barbarians as a department of government was responsible for foreign relations in the Byzantine Empire.

In fact, the main motive in the use of diplomacy for the Byzantine Empire was to avoid war, and all diplomatic practice was devoted to this aim. Therefore, the empire used diplomacy as a means of foreign policy continuously, employing more emphasis on it than military means. The correct answer is B.

Neo-classical realist approach can be interpreted as a scholarly attempt at successfully merging the tangible and intangible motivations of states’ foreign policy behaviors.

On the other hand, in case values and norms shape foreign policy, the question of ‘who states are’ significantly shapes the questions of ‘what states want and how states behave. Looking at foreign policy from this perspective, state leaders bother to ask how others are ruled in their internal affairs and which values they embrace domestically. Foreign policy mainly targets the internal transformation of other states in the image of the values and norms that one holds at home. 

However, professionalization of diplomatic institutions started with the Westphalia Treaty in 1648 after which modern and secular states began to be established. 

Balance of powers politics has shaped Turkish diplomacy since the early 1920s. Signing strategic cooperation agreements with Britain and France on the eve of the World War II and joining NATO in 1952 should be understood as Turkey’s efforts to achieve its security interests through alliance politics.

Ottoman envoys assigned by the sultan to carry out specific diplomatic activities were evaluating their missions in the reports called Sefaretname (Diplomatic Letters). Diplomatic letters were rich sources for the Ottoman diplomacy and diplomatic missions.

The Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank is an alternative institutional platform whose establishment is masterminded by China under its guidance?

Mediation is a conflict management tool used widely across a diverse set of contentious cases, running the gamut from divorce settlement talks to labor management negotiations to peace efforts between warring states. Therefore, the correct option is C.

Mediation may be defined as a process in which disputants attempt to resolve their differences with the assistance of an acceptable third party.

Another Florentine diplomat who has contributed to the theory of diplomacy is Francesco Guicciardini. The main theme in Guicciardini’s theory, which is generally outlined in his History of Italy, is the value of good ambassadors, which he sees as a source of prestige for the price. 

The Cold War was another turning point in the evolution of modern diplomacy. Despite the existence of nuclear threat stemmed from proliferation of nuclear weapons and the feeling of insecurity throughout the world, diplomacy became an integral part of Cold War politics especially in the form of summit diplomacy between two superpowers. Therefore, diplomatic institutions and instruments have been professionalized since the beginning of the Cold War with the unprecedented development of globalization. Bilateral and multilateral negotiations and summits have jointly become the platform of inter-state relations. Institutionally, ministries of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic missions are still basic institutions of diplomacy. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Multi-National Companies (MNCs) have become essential parts of diplomacy in the global age. 

What are the basic features of a mediation intervention? A giant in the mediation studies, Bercovitch goes beyond just proposing a definition and clarifies the eight characteristics of international mediation as follows (Bercovitch, 1992: 4-5):

1. Mediation is an extension and continuation of the parties’ own conflict management efforts.

2. Mediation involves the intervention of an individual, group or organization into a dispute between two or more actors.

3. Mediation is a non-coercive, non-violent and ultimately nonbinding form of intervention.
4. Mediation turns an original bilateral dispute into triadic interaction of some kind. 
5. A mediator enters a dispute in order to affect, change, resolve, modify or influence it in some way.
6. Mediators bring with them, consciously or otherwise, ideas, knowledge, resources and interests of their own or of the group
or organization they represent.
7. Mediation is a voluntary form of intervention.
8. Mediation operates on an ad hoc basis only.

Therefore, the correct option is C.

UN consists of six main bodies: General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice and Secretariat. Except International Court of Justice in Hague, other bodies of UN are in New York. Major functional bodies of the UN are General Assembly and Security Council. General Assembly comprises of all UN members and each state has one vote for the decisions. General Assembly focuses on issues such as “considering and approving the United Nations budget and establishing the financial assessments of Member States; electing the non-permanent members of the Security Council and the members of other United Nations councils and organs, on the recommendation of the Security Council appointing the Secretary-General. 

Diplomacy in the Islamic world began with the establishment of the first Islamic state in 622; and it was not founded through military means but by a social contract, the Medina Charter. The function of diplomats was to communicate with other states, to conclude an agreement or alliance which was decided previously, to arrange the exchange of prisoners and the truce, and to announce war. Most certainly, another function of envoys was to gather information about the weaknesses and/or strengths of the host country. The function of diplomacy in these early years was at the most basic level since the strength of the state in the absence of at least an equal power did not raise the need to a more complex function for diplomacy. Diplomatic contact between Islamic or Arab, Byzantine and also Latin rulers were frequent in the Middle Ages. The motives for diplomatic practice were similar to other ages and civilizations: political concern regarding peace and war, economic or commercial motives and definitely information gathering. Emissaries played the most important role in this vein; and it can be said that diplomatic envoys were great travelers in the Middle Ages. As Drocourt stated, they usually spent more time travelling than negotiating because of the distance between the Arab region and Constantinople or the whole Western part of Christendom. The correct answer is Choice C.

Turkey also wants to play an active role in NATO’s efforts to reach out to the Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions.

Multilateral diplomacy is literally defined as diplomatic relations between more than two states. It is also known as “conference diplomacy” or “parliamentary diplomacy” because multilateral diplomatic relations are mainly conducted through conferences and face-to-face interaction between leaders or missions of states. 

Despite the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the Johnson Letter crisis in 1964, the arms embargo crisis in 1975, and the anti-U.S. sentiments running high in the country from time to time; NATO preserved its privileged position in Turkish diplomacy during much of the Cold War period.