Turkey, Poland and Lithuania through the centuries: a conference in Ankara
Under the auspices of the Embassies of Lithuania and Poland in Turkey and in cooperation with the TOBB University of Economics and Technology and TEPAV think tank, an academic conference was organized at TOBB-ETU on February 26 under the title „Interfaces between East and West: Views to Turkey“. The aim of the conference was to explore the history of political and diplomatic ties between the Ottoman Empire and the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania in search of common denominators, recurring patterns and links to present day foreign policy of modern Turkey, Poland and Lithuania.
In his opening speech, Ambassador Audrius Bruzga recalled the famous saying, that „History is our best teacher“ and went on to encourage the participants to try and identify common challenges and common threats as those three countries had been progressing through centuries.
One of the speakers, Prof. Egdūnas Račius from Vytautas Magnus University spoke about the Tatar community as an organic link between the Ottoman Empire and the Commonwealth and Lithuania in particular; and religion as a non-divisive factor in co-existence and relationship of those political entities. Another Lithuanian speaker, Assoc. Prof. Konstantinas Andrijauskas from the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University shared his views on modern identity politics and security situation in the Baltic and the Black sea basins. Two conference panels addressed a host of other issues related to regional security in the Black sea area, Ukraine, Russia and Turkey.
