In the framework of Bridging Dialogue Initiative, Dimitris Rapidis discussed with Dr. Tiryaki over a strong of issues from the Cyprus issue, to Turkey's EU negotiation process, the major threat of ISIS, illegal immigration, and the Ukrainian crisis.
 

For a few weeks, it has been a case of when rather than if Turkey would get more heavily involved in the Syrian civil war. Now, the questions are what will it do and what will the consequences be. None of the options look particularly appealing for Ankara.

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To read the full article in English, please visit the MEED here.

Following the EuroMeSCo General Assembly, GPoT Center’s Project Officer Duygu Alpan participated in the EuroMeSCo Annual Conference 2014 in Barcelona between October 2nd and 3rd, 2014. The conference was jointly organised by the Euro-Mediterranean Study Commission - EuroMeSCo and European Institute of the Mediterranean - IEMed.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Increasing Diversity in the Euro-Mediterranean Region?”. The discussions during the two-day event covered the following topics:

GPoT Center’s Project Officer Duygu Alpan participated in the 5th Young Talks organised by Koç University Social Impact Forum on 24 September 2014 in Istanbul. She presented on the social aspects of Turkish-Armenian relations. Her presentation featured dialogue building activities between Turkish and Armenian societies as well as media’s role in the normalisation process.

Turkey secured the release of 49 hostages who had been held for more than three months in Iraq by the jihadists of the Islamic State on Saturday, marking a moment of joy for Turkey while raising questions about how it had managed to set them free.

Turkey said its intelligence agency had led a covert operation to bring home the hostages, who included diplomats and their families, but insisted that no military actions had been taken and that no ransoms were paid.

The UNAOC-EF Summer School organized by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and Education First (EF) hosted 75 young leaders from 70 different countries in Tarrytown, NY, USA between 16-23 August, 2014. The 75 participants were selected from over 15,000 submitted applications. The annual weeklong program is based on the idea that young people are a driving force for positive social change.