Turkey minister to visit Sudan for Islamic culture meet

By Enes Duran

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish Culture Minister Numan Kurtulmus will visit Sudan for the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO)’s 10th culture ministers’ conference, according to a ministry statement released Monday.

At the event, which will run from Tuesday to Thursday of this week, Kurtulmus will meet his counterparts from several fellow Islamic countries, according to the statement.

While at the conference, the statement notes, the Turkish culture minister plans to stress the importance of “cultural diplomacy” and the need to cooperate in the fight against Islamophobia.

Kurtulmus will also participate in talks, held on the event’s sidelines, aimed at drawing up a “Draft Cultural Strategy".

In his discussions with fellow conference attendees, Kurtulmus will also recount Turkey's recent experiences in the field of cultural heritage preservation.

While in Sudan, the minister will also inaugurate a library built by Turkeys’ Yunus Emre Institute and the Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA).

In his Monday statement, Kurtulmus underlined the need for stepped-up cooperation between Muslim states in the field of heritage preservation.

“We can protect and promote the cultural heritage of the Islamic civilization together,” he said.

“We can hold our geography together, despite attempts to break it up, with the strength we draw from our civilizations,” he added.

The ISESCO conference is being organized within the framework of the 2017 Capital of Islamic Culture celebrations currently underway in Sudan’s Sinnar province.