News

Senator O’Connell takes good will trip to Turkey, Azerbaijan

By Tyler Ohmann

06/25/2013

Senator David O’Connell and his wife Ann recently returned from a trip of a lifetime.

The pair as well as another North Dakota senator, three North Dakota house members, a South Dakota house member and the mayor of Michigan, N.D. and her aid traveled to Turkey and Azerbaijan for a goodwill mission.

“Basically it started out as an energy conference, because they are at 1.2 million barrels a day, and North Dakota is kind of catching up to them,” David O’Connell said. “They kind of wanted to know what kind of problems we had, and how we solve them.”

Another part of the agenda included talks about organic foods, especially corn and soybeans, which North Dakota is a major producer of.

“The rest of it was basically a good will mission to meet their president and their parliament people,” David O’Connell said. “It was an impressive trip, and I hope we left a good impression.”

A lot of the trip involved tourism, and it included a lot of traveling.

The O’Connell’s said that most days they were up at 4 a.m. to get to the airport and hop on a plane to visit several different cities including Baku (Azerbaijan), Antayla, Istanbul and the capital of Turkey Ankara.

“They really wanted to try and improve the relations and the way the American people think about their country,” Ann O’Connell said. “A lot of times we have a preconceived idea that it would not be the most friendly or beautiful, but it was just the opposite.”

One of the highlights for the group was seeing the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey. Ann O’Connell was honored to be an invitee to the trip.

“I felt it was really an honor, and an honor to be invited,” Ann O’Connell said. “Their country was historic and scenic, and it it was much different that I expected.”

Some of the unique things that the O’Connell’s encountered were the religion, the beautiful roadways and coastlines and being in two continents in one days time.

“I was just awestruck at how ancient the country was in comparison to our country, which is fairly new,” Ann O’Connell said.

She was impressed with how well they were treated, often times she said she felt like royalty.

“The people there were very hospitable,” Ann O’Connell said. “It was a friendship mission, and they did a really good job of making us feel welcome.”

However, the trip was not all touring and good faith relations. It took a turn when the bus that the group was on was swarmed by a group of an estimated 5,000 protestors, who were banging on the bus’ windows.

“We were only effected one day really, and we got caught in the middle of them (the riots),” David O’Connell said. “It was a little unnerving to go through, because there were about 5,000 demonstrators, and you never know what’s going to happen.”

“We had a good amount of security though, and they had it in hand,” David O’Connell added.

It wasn’t the first mission that the O’Connell’s were privy too though. David O’Connell said he had been on other goodwill trips to Taiwan and China.

The trip to Turkey though was one of his favorites as he said that they treated them well and gave them an open and inviting view of the country.

David O’Connell has been involved in North Dakota Politics since 1983 when he began in the house. He was elected a senator in 1989 and was senate minority leader from 2003-2009.