New Turkish Cultural Center to open in London

An institute named after 13th century Turkish poet and Sufi mystic Yunus Emre will open in London this fall as part of an effort to match Turkey's growing foreign policy influence with equivalent cultural depth. Professor Ali Fuat Bilkan, head of the Yunus Emre Institute, said he hoped the group would become a Turkish version of the British Council and Germany's Goethe Institute, which have successfully promoted their countries' language, culture, art and history abroad. The institute is free of government control and aims to meet the demand for Turkish language courses in other countries while helping to establish academic departments specializing in Turkology and training new Turkologists. The institute's official inauguration in Britain will take place during President Abdullah Gul's trip to London this November.