TRT World Forum opens with focus on peace and security

The second annual international forum of Turkey’s public broadcaster, TRT World, opened in Istanbul on Wednesday, featuring opinion leaders and decision makers.

The 2018 TRT World Forum also brings together a range of politicians, academics, journalists and businesspeople from around the world. The theme of this year’s event is "Envisioning Peace and Security in a Fragmented World."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will make a speech titled "In Pursuit of Justice in a Fragmented World" at the closing ceremony of the forum on Thursday.

The two days conference will focus on transformations in the international system since the First World War, the European Union as a post-WWII project and the shifting security equation in the Middle East.

Other speakers of note are Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkish Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, former president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and the UN secretary general’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura.

The leadership role of Women in a time of conflict, new media and trust formation, and international cooperation in counter-terrorism will also be a key issue at the forum.

Concrete solutions to humanitarian issues

This year’s forum brings together over six hundred distinguished guests and speakers from around the world.

Ibrahim Eren, the Director-General of TRT, opened the forum, which features four public sessions:

- A World in or Out of Order? A Hundred Years Since WWI

- The EU and its Discontents: Is it the End of the European Project?

- Disrupting the Established Order: The Rise of the Global South

- The Leadership of Women in a World of Conflict.

“The forum is expected to produce concrete solutions to the recent humanitarian issues with the participants’ opinions and the Turkish approach,” Eren told TRT World ahead of the opening.

President Erdogan's closing keynote address is entitled "In Pursuit of Justice in a Fragmented World."

World Citizen Awards

Turkey’s English-language television and online portal, TRT World, will also host the World Citizen Awards in Istanbul on Wednesday.

Global leaders in the fields of politics, academia, arts and entertainment, humanitarian aid and business will attend the awards ceremony. Turkey’s First Lady Emine Erdogan will speak at the ceremony.

Four awards will be given: Education, Communication, Lifetime Achievement and a special Citizen of the Year honour.

This year's event follows the inaugural TRT World Forum, held in 2017 in Istanbul with the theme “Inspiring Change in an Age of Uncertainty."