TRT World Forum to kick off in Istanbul on Wednesday

ISTANBUL (AA) – TRT World Forum, a two-day conference that will gather opinion leaders and policymakers from around the world will kick off on Oct. 3 in Istanbul, the broadcaster announced on Tuesday.

TRT World, Turkey's English-language broadcasting platform, said in a statement that the theme of the event for this year was “Envisioning Peace and Security in a Fragmented World”.

“Turkey’s public broadcaster, TRT, has secured top global speakers for the World Forum which will conclude with a keynote address by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” the statement added.

Among the participants are Rania Al-Abdullah, the queen of Jordan who will make keynote speech on “Fostering Global Consciousness,” as well as; Ivo Josipovic, former president of Croatia; Franco Frattini, former Italian foreign minister; Hamid Karzai, former president of Afghanistan; Staffan de Mistura, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy to Syria; Ali Asghar Soltanieh Iran’s former permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency; and Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum.

The statement quoted Ibrahim Eren, director general and chairman of TRT saying: “We welcome such esteemed speakers and guests. It is appropriate that Istanbul should be the location for such a high-level dialogue on humanitarian issues because the city is a historic bridge between East and West and the geographical proximity to conflict zones means that Turkey is currently coping with more than 3 million refugees.”

Parallel to the forum, TRT World will also host the World Citizen Awards, which recognize exceptional individual contributions to humanity on Wednesday.

Anadolu Agency is the global communications partner of the event.