On May 7-8, 2018, Turkey hosted an annual Istanbul Security Conference. Petr Stegny, RIAC member, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation, and Timur Makhmutov, Deputy Director of Programs, took part in the event on the Russian side, among the speakers at thematic sessions on the Middle East issues.
On May 7-8, 2018, Turkey hosted an annual Istanbul Security Conference. Petr Stegny, RIAC member, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation, and Timur Makhmutov, Deputy Director of Programs, took part in the event on the Russian side, among the speakers at thematic sessions on the Middle East issues.
The event was held for the eleventh time with the support of the Center of Strategic Research of the Başkent University and Konrad-Adenauer Foundation. Having started as a German-Turkish security dialogue, the expert platform has widened the range of issues discussed in recent years and was able to attract the interest of specialists from various areas and states.
This year the conference brought together about 80 participants. The organizers offered an ambitious general theme of the meeting — "Turning Challenges into Opportunities". Within the framework of this approach, expert discussions focused on the following issues: countering extremism and global terrorism, regulating migration at the national and international levels, conditions for restoring peace and security in Syria and Iraq, the impact of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt’s coalition behavior on Arab countries and Iran, the future of hybrid and proxy wars, the energy factor in establishing peace in the Eastern Mediterranean region, EU approaches to regional stability in the East of the Mediterranean, and cyber secutiry.
