Meeting with Syrian Media Representatives

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Meeting with Syrian Media Representatives With the coordination of Turkish Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with the cooperation of Turkish Republic  Office of the Prime Minister Directorate General of Press and Information and Syria Ministry of Information, the Syrian media board consisting of Syria Ministry of Information Director of Foreign Information Usameh Shahhoud, Director of Syrian State Radio Nabil Shannar, Syrian State Radio Turkish Section Official  Ahmad Akef, Syrian State Television Speaker Zilal Murshid, Syrian State Television Cameraman Jihad Yahya, Syria News Agency Author Zeyna Najib, Head Editor of Thawra Newspaper Asad Abboud, Head Editor of Baath Newspaper Dr. Abdullatif Umran ve Tishreen Newspaper Correspondent  Rana Haj İbrahim, by the means of High Level Strategic Cooperation Meeting which is to be held on 23 December 2009 in Syria, have visited Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies on 14 December 2009.

During the meeting after Director of ORSAM Hasan Kanbolat gave short information about ORSAM, emphasized the lack of dialog between Turkish and Middle Eastern intellectuals and mentioned that ORSAM aims to fulfill this gap. Kanbolat pointed out the need that Turkish and Syrian intellectuals must contact with each other more frequently in order to know each other more accurately because, he underlined, side the inter-intellectual dialog is rare, the developed Turkish-Syrian economic and Political ties can’t sustain.

Head Editor of Baath Newspaper Dr. Abdullatif Umran mentioned that he agrees with Kanbolat and further expressed that the relations between Syria and turkey that have been developed in almost all areas in the past 10 years is not valid for the relations between the intellectuals of both countries. He added that current Political atmosphere is very suitable to fulfill this gap.  Umran said that in Syria it is possible to reach many Turkish authors’ products in Arabic as well as Turkish films and TV serials, however it is not that much possible for strategic works.  Therefore, he mentioned, the two countries have to follow each other and learn each other from Western resources which led the sides to have inaccurate information about each other.

ORSAM Middle East specialist Oytun Orhan emphasized that one of the most important difficulties that is faced during Syrian studies is that it is hard to get information from the inside of Syria and there emerges the necessity to study Syria from foreign resources. He said that in order to fulfill this gap, ORSAM devotes very much importance to area works.

At the end of the meeting, Hasan Kanbolat mentioned that the opinions shared regarding the problems and development of the relations must be followed with concrete and progressive steps and there is the need for the cooperation of Syrian intellectuals in order to prevent Turkey to learn Syria from the Western sources.