Two-day workshop on Arab spring kicks off in Istanbul

A two-day workshop discussing the latest developments in North Africa and the Arab countries, entitled "Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy" began in Istanbul yesterday. The workshop, jointly organized by the Turkish Prime Ministry's Office of Public Diplomacy and the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (CMCU) at Georgetown University, is taking place at the Prime Ministry's Dolmabahce Office. Sixty high-profile participants from Europe, the United States, the Arab world and Turkey are attending the workshop, where the Arab Spring will be discussed extensively. On the first day of the workshop yesterday, Public Diplomacy Coordinator Ibrahim Kalin and Georgetown University CMCU founding director John L. Esposito delivered speeches. Speaking to the Anatolian news agency prior to the workshop, Kalin said a new page has been turned in the Arab world and consecutive public revolutions have destroyed many of the myths about Arabs in the minds of the people. "We are just at the beginning of the beginning. Now, dictators are gone, but old structures of the past and main elements of the old regime still continue their presence. The change of this will take time." he said. Kalin also dwelled on Turkey's role in these countries' transition to democracy and said recent visits of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya showed that all the political actors in these countries want to benefit from Turkey's experience of democracy.