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International conference â€œTolerance and Discrimination in Educationâ€ within the 8th General Assembly of the Dialogue Eurasia Platform kicks off in Antalya

14 November 2008 12:48 (UTC +04:00)

Antalyaâ€“APA. An international conference â€œTolerance and Discrimination in Educationâ€ within the 8th General Assembly of the Dialogue Eurasia Platform kicked off in Antalya, Turkey on Friday. The conference was co-organized by the Turkeyâ€™s Ministry of Education and Dialogue Eurasia Russian National Committee, the platformâ€™s chair, APA reports.

Welcoming the participants, chairman of the platform Rastislav Ribakov spoke about the way Eurasian peoples passed and work done during the Russian DA presidency and enlargement of the platform. He said sometimes the seeds of enmity were sown via the education. Ribakov said DA was trying to eliminate the discrimination and he believed that it would reach its goal.

Chairman of DA Azerbaijan National Committee, member of the Azerbaijani parliament Nizami Jafarov, speaking on behalf of the Azerbaijani delegation, said the education was an important factor for the fate of nations and peoples. The lawmaker said during the Soviet time the seeds of discrimination and enmity were sown between the peoples with same roots via the education. â€œThe books of history of that time introduced alleged information about enmity between the Azerbaijani and Turkish peoplesâ€.
Jafarov said recently they made proposals to publish common books of literature and history for the Turkic peoples. He said education programs of the Turkic peoples already had common topics, but it should be extended further.

He called on the Turkish scientists and writers to make the books suitable not only for Turkey, but for all Turkic world.

Founder and Chairman of the Dialogue Eurasia Platform Harun Tokak spoke about the DA activity and the way it passed. Tokak said DA has been working for almost 10 years and the subject of this meeting was chosen not accidentally. Tokak said DA proposed to ban the books seeding enmity between the peoples and emphasized the importance of establishing the researching centers relating the different countries and institutions making peoples to know each other closely. He especially underlined the establishing of Russian researching center in Turkey.

Tokak said monuments should be erected not only to the heroes of fight, but also to the heroes of peace.

Chairman of the Dialogue Eurasia said the organization should contribute to Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

Turkish Minister of Education Huseyn Chelik spoke about the activity and targets of DA. He said education had a great influence on the globalization of the world. The minister said holding discussions to remove the items propagating enmity towards other countries from books on history, did not mean to distort the history or make people forget it.
â€œHistory is important for every nation. It is also important how the historical events are explained. We were taught at school that Turkey is surrounded by seas from three sides and by enemies in four sides. It has changed and now we say â€œTurkey is surrounded by neighborsâ€. It is important how history is taught to the youth,â€ he said.

The minister also underlined that a dialogue did not mean a nationâ€™s separation from its language, religion, culture and history.
â€œOn the contrary, a nation possessing all this easily reaches understanding with other nations and establish better relations, because those who respect themselves can respect the others,â€ he said.

Huseyn Chelik said Turkish schools abroad also contributed to the dialogue.

Head of Antalya municipality Menderes Turel, head of DAâ€™s Georgian committee Giuli Alasaniya, Turkish representative of DA Naji Bostanji and committee chiefs in other countries also addressed the event.