This summer's abant meeting to seek foreign perspective

Abant Platform Secretary-General Huseyin Hurmali has said this summer’s meeting will continue to dissect pressing issues in Turkey, but, for the first time ever, will do so from the viewfinder of foreigners living here. "Since the Abant Platform’s first meeting in 1998, we have tried to bring together people from different cultures, ideologies and religions to find common solutions to common problems. Now, we want to hear from Turkey’s guests, the foreigners living and studying and working here," Hurmali told Today’s Zaman on Tuesday of the upcoming 27th Abant meeting.Hurmali said the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), which houses the Abant Platform, saw both the need for and opportunity of a meeting of foreign scholars, academics and journalists in Turkey. The Abant Platform already meets with members of the foreign media every week in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, Hurmali said. "We have so many intellectuals and journalists from all over the world here. We saw a need for this kind of diversity in public dialogue in Turkey," he said. But the 27th Abant meeting on June 22-24 is the first opportunity of its kind, Hurmali continued, to hear from those who also have knowledge of and experience with issues in Turkey, but with a different frame of mind. "We’ve held international Abant meetings in Brussels, Cairo, Washington, D.C. … but hosting a meeting strictly for foreigners in Turkey? That’s something new," he said.