Climate change to be on agenda of Eurasian Economic Summit

While many international conferences in Turkey are being canceled due to recent terrorist attacks, the 19th Eurasian Economic Summit will go ahead as planned in Istanbul from April 5 to 7. In addition to terrorism and migration issues, climate change will also be debated by participants from a region rich in fossil fuels. 

"Climate change is a reality of our age; we cannot run away from it," said Dr. Akkan Suver the head of the Marmara Foundation, which has organized the event for the past 19 years.
 
Tell us how the Eurasia summits started.

We started in 1998 with seven Caucasian and Central Asian countries aiming to establish greater cooperation. The following year we had participation from European countries, and over time it expanded to include participants from a total of 45 countries. We preferred to focus on energy and the economy.

"Eurasia" was a very popular concept after the demise of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Iron Curtain. But it seems less popular today.

Just as Europe's value is not limited to its geography, you should not measure Eurasia's value only by its geography either; Eurasia is not simply a map. But we should not forget that with the introduction of China's Silk Road project, Eurasia is about linking a geography from Beijing to London. Turkey is at the center of this geography.

We call our summit the Eurasia Economic Summit, but we have participants from Australia and the United States. Obviously the Eurasia of 1992 is not the same as present-day Eurasia. The countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia have changed since 1992. 

In the past we [Turkey] used to tell the Europeans to go to Central Asia with us; we told them it would be easier to find partners in these new...