Participated by influential figures of variety of both print and digital media institutions, Medialog Platform brought together columnists, journalists and media officials from both countries to discuss Turkish-Syrian relations and how media reflect the relations in media of both countries. Delivering an opening speech of the platform, Ilyas Murat, Head of Syria Journalists Community, said Turkey is playing an important role in stressing Israel’s crimes against Syria, Palestine and other Arab countries. He said the importance of the Turkish media is thus predominant in this sphere. Noting that the Syrian-Turkish relations are growing in line with the desires of two nations and the media significantly assists to take this cooperation further, Murat said two countries were not expecting such a rapprochement while decisive and positive steps are taken to advance relations of two countries.
The first panel of the meeting featured the keynote speaker Halaf al-Mufteh, head of Syrian al Vahdeh Media Group, who emphasized the significance of Turkey’s role in Syrian-Israeli indirect talks and said politicians open political doors and media institutions open doors for public. Saying that since 2003, there is a tremendous growth in relations between Turkey and Syria, al-Mufteh said Syrian President Bassar al-Assad’s visit to Turkey was detrimental in opening a new page in relations of two countries. Head of the media group composed of seven newspapers, al-Mufteh said following the March 1 voting that rejected the proposal to permit American troops to pass through Turkish territory to the Northern Iraq in 2003, has been extensively covered in Arab media. “Turkish government took a fair stance and it reflects the public opinion,” the media patron said. Expressing that it is better for Turkey to lead the Asia rather than to follow Europe from behind, al-Mufteh said every single day Syria media covers news regarding Turkey.
Speaking during the first panel, Mustafa Akyol from Turkish Daily News said there was a pervasive negative image of Arabs since the independence and this image was steered reasonably well by the westernization movement during the early years of the republic. Akyol noted that people then perceived modernization as detaching from the traditional values and this reflected in historical recordings, too. While saying that Turkey only picked up negative aspects of Arab nations, Akyol said cultural commonalities forgotten while adding that Turkish writings emphasized Arabs’ betrayal to Turks. Speaking about how Turkey jumped out of all these stereotypes, Akyol said Turkey has now passed these stages, which does not mean Turkey left modernization. “Previously, Turkish identity was based on a definition terming Arabs as enemies. Now, transformation in mentality stresses the regional friendship and brotherhood,” Akyol said.
Reacting to the statement of Akyol, Bülent Keneş, editor-in-chief of Today’s Zaman said what Akyol formulated as a history was an official history and this was not reflected among public circles. “Subsequent to the World War I, various borders may be drawn yet these artificial boundaries never became cultural. These official borders were realized in contrary to what people of two nations asserted. We experienced 70-year detachment from Syria yet people living near Syrian border never felt that and actually inter-marriage between two communities was widespread,” Keneş noted. While noting that sentences and phrased used by Assad during his meeting with the Syrian President was too similar to the phrases used by the Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Keneş stated the lift of visa requirements between two countries made the function of borders futile.
