Dozens of organizations from Armenia, Turkey ready to host fellows

The Hrant Dink Foundation has established a fellowship scheme with a view to promote cross-border affiliation and cooperation among professionals from the two neighboring countries within the framework of the Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalization Process program financed by the European Union.

Executives from the foundation as well as the Delegation of the European Commission to Turkey gathered with representatives of civil society organizations, as well as individuals, at a meeting held in Ankara yesterday. During this meeting they briefed them on the 25 host organizations from Armenia and the programs that they offered as part of the Turkey-Armenia Fellowship Scheme.

In addition those 25 organizations in the estranged neighbor, some 63 organizations from Turkey are also ready to act as host organizations for fellows from Armenia.

Ankara University Faculty of Political Science; Boğaziçi University Department of History; Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges Economic and Technology University (TOBB ETU) Department of International Relations; Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) Foreign Policy Program; Diyarbakır Institute for Political and Social Research (DİSA); daily BirGün; CNNTürk; Radikal.com.tr; Kalem Literary Agency; and Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality are some of those partners in Turkey.

During the meeting in Ankara, a member of the selection committee recalled how civil society from Greece and Turkey was in an interactive dialogue and cooperation in the late 1990s and in early 2000s and how this dialogue eventually paved the way for a rapprochement between the Aegean neighbors, who were also estranged...