Deputy PM to lobby for Alliance of Civilizations

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay went to the United States to attend meetings of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations project and to secure strong participation in the project’s next meeting in Istanbul. 

“I will hold talks with U.N. officials so as to increase the number of participants at the Istanbul meeting in May,” Atalay told reporters in Istanbul prior to his departure, Doğan news agency reported.

Atalay, the Turkish official responsible for the project, was scheduled to meet with U.N. officials today and yesterday.

The Alliance of Civilizations, established in 2005 as an initiative of Spain and Turkey under the auspices of the U.N., seeks to address tensions across cultural divides that threaten to inflame existing political conflicts or trigger new ones. However, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said earlier this month that he did not know what to do with the Alliance of Civilizations initiative, and the value of continuing the initiative should be discussed, Anatolia news agency reported.