TEPAV Director Sak: "You can not become a regional power if yo do not know your neighbors well" Delivering an opening speech in the Conference "Russian Language Education in Turkey", Sak maintained that a country who does not know the countries of the region well and have experts in this field could not became a regional power and underlined that Turkey has to built capacity in this regard.

ANKARA - "Russian Language Education" Conference organized by TEPAV Russian Center in cooperation with TOBB ETU Department of International Entrepreneurship and Moscow State University Center for Foreign Language Education began in Ankara on October 22, 2010.

Delivering an opening speech, TEPAV Director Güven Sak stated that this year TOBB ETU launched the Department of International Entrepreneurship, which will have a program oriented at studying in Russia for the first year. Sak stated that the aim in this context is to build capacity in two areas. Underlining that Turkish firms who engage in business in neighboring countries where Russian is the official language started to invest in such countries, Sak maintained that one of the objectives of the program was to train young people who could work in these firms and that universities needed to take a more active role in this issue. Sak went on saying that another objective of the program is to improve Turkey's capacity to become a 'regional power', an issue widely discussed recently. Sak argued that a country which is not aware of the lives of the neighboring countries and which does not develop expertise on the system in force and economic milieu in neighboring countries cannot become a regional power. Sak continued: "With this department we aim to train lawyers who are expert on Russia's legal system, economists who are expert on Russia's economic system and political scientists who have the ability to monitor the political system."

After Russia, entrepreneurship efforts will be directed to Arab countries

Sak said that the TOBB ETU International Entrepreneurship program concentrated on Russia and Russian language for the latter being a language spoken over a wide geography and stated that in two years a program on Arab language will also be launched. Sak also maintained that the studies and efforts on Russia did not have a single dimension but they were in cooperation with the Russian Embassy and Russkiy Mir Foundation. Stressing that the Russian Center opened at TEPAV in May is a good example of this cooperation; Sak said that the center was devised not as just a new center that teaches the Russian language but to carry out activities on a wider scope. Sak added that the conference "Russian Language Education in Turkey" was organized in this context in order to assess in a more comprehensive perspective the problems about Russian language education in Turkey and the recent developments in this field.

People speaking Russian will secure a place

Aleksandr Epifanov, Counsellor, Embassy of Russian Federation in Turkey, delivered an opening speech and underlined that Turkey-Russia relations has a history of more that five centuries and that it is the 90^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Epifanov said that, though relations came to freeze in some periods in history, the countries maintain close relations in the recent period. Underlining that this friendly relations have also been translated into the economy, Epifanov talked about the target to raise the mutual trade volume between Turkey and Russia to US$100 billion over the five years ahead. Stressing that tourism is one of the most crucial fields of cooperation between the two countries; he said that the number of Russian tourists in Turkey was expected to increase by 10%. Epifanov added that the abolition of visa procedures between Turkey and Russia is to be launched in a couple of months. Stating that in line with this outlook they seek to upgrade Turkey-Russia relations to an upper base and generalize throughout the public, Epifanov said that Turkey and Russia must give importance to education of Russian and Turkish language in this context. Emphasizing that Russia needs trainers who could speak Turkish and Turkey needs trainers who could speak Russian, Epifanov went on saying that Turkish people who can speak Russian would definitely secure a place in the context of the accelerating relations between Russia and Turkey.

Opening speeches were followed by the seminar on the status of Russian language today and teaching Russian as a foreign language with the contributions of several experts. At the end of the conference, which will last two days, participants will be awarded a certificate. Participants of the conference include representatives from universities, foreign language training centers and cultural associations.