The 19th international conference on ‘The European Union, Turkey, the Middle East and the Kurds’ will be held on 26 and 27 March at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss the latest developments regarding the Kurdish people in Turkey and the Middle East.
The annual international conference is organised by the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) in cooperation with the The Left, the Greens-European Free Alliance and the Groups of the Free Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. In an invitation published on the website of the EUTCC, the commission highlighted that these conferences, organised annually over the last 19 years, have received international attention from “civil society organisations, academics, European, Turkish and Kurdish politicians, policy-makers and activists”.
📢 19th EUTCC Conference on the European Union, Turkey, the Kurds and the Middle East
🗓 26 & 27 March 2025
🌍 European Parliament Brussels📋 Programme 👇https://t.co/1FSH97w7J9 pic.twitter.com/ivNkWG1V1C
— EUTCC (@EUTCC1) March 20, 2025
Among this year’s speakers will be 12 MEPs, Nobel Laureates Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams, Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) Foreign Relations Representative İlham Ahmed, Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Tuncer Bakırhan, co-chair of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party and members of the İmralı delegation, which last visited imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan on 27 February on İmralı island prison.
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Dersim Dagdeviren, co-chair of the Kurdish Academic Network Kurd Akad and board member of the EU Turkey Civic Commission, spoke to Medya News about the event, saying that the “recent developments in Syria, especially in North and East Syria, and Mr Öcalan’s call [for democracy and peace] have significantly increased the interest in the conference.”
The conference will host five panels addressing topics such as ‘The Middle East in turmoil: Interactions and challenges’, ‘A new chapter in Turkey: Obstacles and opportunities for peace and reconciliation’, ‘Turkey in the New World Order’, ‘The European Union, the Kurds and Turkey in the context of progress and democracy’ and ‘Promoting democracy – Shaping the future” with simultaneous translations provided into eight different languages.
The last conference, which took place on 6-7 December 2023 at the European Parliament in Brussels, concluded with a resolution condemning Turkey’s heightened anti-democratic actions and urging global intervention on the Kurdish question.
