ORSAM Press Conference at Beirut Yunus Emre Cultural Center

3 dakika okuma süresi

In Beirut, Lebanese capital, ORSAM presented its report titled “Effects of the Syrian crisis on the Neighboring Countries”. Turkish ambassador in Beirut Çağatay Erciyes, ORSAM President Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şaban Kardaş, President of Academy of Diplomacy under Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mesut Özcan, academic from International Relations department of Uludağ University Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ferhat Pirinççi, Director of Yunus Emre Institute Cengiz Eroğlu, Lebanese and Turkish academicians participated in the conference at Beirut Yunus Emre Cultural Center as well as Turkish population living in Lebanon and Lebanese representatives. 

Delivering the first speech of the conference, ORSAM President Kardaş indicated that the report was written on the effects of the Syrian crisis primarily on Syria and then on the neighboring countries in the region and that the crisis caused national problems in the neighboring countries as well as regional disputes. Kardaş emphasized that they conducted field researches in the border cities of Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey, the neighboring countries of Syria and interviewed with the officials, specialists and Syrian groups. He added: “The objective of this report is to understand how the Syrian crisis has changed the notion of security in the Middle East.” Indicating that certain countries in the region benefited from the Syrian crisis for a short time, Kardaş also said: “But the crisis negatively affected the countries in general. We see this when we compare the chapters of economy and security between the years 2010 and 2011.” One of the report writers, Ferhat Pirinççi stated that they categorized the effects of the crisis on the countries in the region under six subtitles which are migration effects, effects on the state structure, radicalization effects, effects on the social structure, economy and security. Indicating that Iraq was one of the countries which were affected the least by the Syrian refugees, Pirinççi added: “Only 5% of the Syrian refugees went to Iraq but 3.2 million Iraqi people had to leave their houses due to the Syrian crisis and fight against DAESH.” Pirinççi indicated that there were 1.1 million Syrian refugees according to Lebanon’s official figures but Lebanon was the first country to receive the highest number of Syrian refugees. He also added that Sunni, Shiite, Nusayri and Syrian groups were directly affected by the crisis in Lebanon and these groups were under the risk of radicalization. Republic of Turkey Ministry of Justice President of Academy of Diplomacy Mesut Özcan reminded that the crisis affected Turkey in several aspects such as politics and economy. Özcan indicated that the crisis affected the foreign policies and relations of the neighboring countries and said that Turkey lost the economic markets in the region due to the Syrian crisis and this led Turkey to search for new markets. 

After the presentations, the conference ended with the questions of the journalists participating from the prominent media organizations in Lebanon and the comments of the Lebanese participants. The conference held in Beirut also had media coverage.

To read the news about the conference on Lebanese media, please see: 

https://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2016/Jun-16/357198-lebanon-faces-radicalization-threat-report.ashx