Hello,

I welcome all our readers across the world who are keenly interested in developments in Turkey and its immediate geographic vicinity. The editorial staff and I are well aware of the fact that this paper, in both its print and Web editions, is being closely followed by a great number of people all over the world on a daily basis. The reason is simple yet also complex: Turkey stands at the world's geographic and political crossroads. In recent years it has become one of the most closely followed and frequently discussed countries.

Turkey is increasingly becoming involved in world affairs, more than ever before, thanks to growing relations with the European Union, globalization, intercultural interactions and increasing economic and political interdependency among countries.

Global conflicts and tensions are growing and spreading, making communication among different societies, cultures, religions and languages necessary. Granted that Turkey is not immune to this process, we felt the need to establish a new mass media source that ensures credible news, objective analysis and trustworthy information for those interested in the country's social, economic, cultural and political development.

Today's Zaman, with an open-minded and visionary perspective, was born out of this necessity as an English-only newspaper in 2007. Within a year of its launch, Today's Zaman became the most-circulating English-language newspaper in Turkey, scoring substantial distance from its closest competitor. Its excellence was also confirmed by the presentation of 21 awards in the Society for News Design's (SND) annual "The Best of Newspaper Design Creative Competition." Today's Zaman won an "Award of Excellence" in the contest in 2008, following closely some of the world's most prestigious newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Guardian.

Today's Zaman is filled with national and international news in the fields of business, diplomacy, politics, culture, arts, sports and economics, in addition to commentaries, specials and features. We have entered contractual agreements with leading newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Project Syndicate to bring news and articles to our readers. We also enjoy the support of the Zaman media conglomerate and its sister agency, the Cihan News Agency, as well as feeds from The Associated Press, Reuters, the Anatolian news agency and ANKA.

Today's Zaman is published six days a week in full 20-page color and features a weekend edition on Sunday (Sunday's Zaman) with a different look and feel. Its weekend edition focuses on in-depth analyses, commentaries, op-eds, features and specials on cultural and social events and items on leisure and entertainment.

The Zaman conglomerate's unique home delivery system gives Today's Zaman a distribution area that no other English-language daily in Turkey could hope to compete against.

We value our readers and enjoy your patronage. Feel free to contact us with your thoughts, suggestions and criticism and share your feedback with us.

Warmest regards,

Bülent Keneş

Editor-in-Chief