11 January 2012 / TODAY'S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL
The Doha Debates, the BBC-broadcast forum financed by a Qatari foundation, will question whether Turkey is a bad model for Arab countries, which have been undergoing political upheaval since the Arab Spring movements first started in 2010, during its first program in 2012, which will be hosted by İstanbul's Boğaziçi University on Thursday.
According to the format of the seven-year-old debates, there will be two groups, which will present arguments for and against the proposed topic. In the group that will maintain that Turkey is not a good model will be Ece Temelkuran, a Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran and former Lebanese Education Minister Hassan Mneimneh. The opposing group includes former Turkish diplomat Sinan Ülgen and Moroccan journalist Abubakr Jamai, who will represent that Turkey is a good model.
Program founder and moderator Tim Sebastian said it is very important to discuss this topic, saying that an answer has to be found to the question of whether Turkey can be a bridge between the East and West, in terms of the change in the Arab world.
The forum for the first time will be held in Turkey.
