TRT World Forum kicks off in Istanbul

The second edition of an annual international meeting hosted by Turkey’s public broadcaster TRT began in Istanbul on Wednesday with a particular focus on global peace and security.

The two-day TRT World Forum, themed "Envisioning Peace and Security in a Fragmented World", brings together over 600 participants including the world’s leading opinion leaders, policymakers, academics and businesspeople from around the world.

The "most pressing issues and challenges" across the world will be discussed over the course of two days of the event, where Anadolu Agency is the global communications partner.

The participants will also "seek to collectively offer actionable strategies and solutions for a world in disarray", according to the website of the forum.

Among the participants are Stef Blok, the Dutch foreign minister; Jordanian Queen Rania Al-Abdullah; Staffan de Mistura, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy to Syria; Francesco Rocca, the president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and Borge Brende, the president of the World Economic Forum.

Jack Straw, former British secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, Franco Frattini, former Italian foreign minister; Hamid Karzai, former Afghan president; Stefan Fule, former European commissioner for enlargement and European neighborhood policy, and Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s former permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, are also among the participants.

On the first day, there will be four sessions under the banners, "A World in or Out of Order?: A Hundred Years since WWI", "the EU and Its Discontents: Is it the End of the European Project?", "Disrupting the Established Order: Rise of the Global South", and "the Leadership of Women in a World of Conflict."

"International Cooperation against Terrorism", "In Pursuit of Justice in a Fragmented World", and "How Social Media Can Positively Transform Lives?" are the themed sessions for the second day of the event.

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

The forum will conclude on Thursday with a keynote address by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.