HEADLINES | TASAM Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies

The natural habitat of human beings is land. However, most of the world is covered with seas and the sea has features that will bring prosperity, wealth and power to human beings. From this point of view, human societies; naturally, at every stage of their sociological development, they first paid attention to the land parts, which are their natural habitats, and then the seas and started to expand their sphere of influence there.

Just beyond the Russian-Ukrainian War of February 24, 2022, Turkey has made great efforts to play the role of mediator between the two Black Sea states. Turkey has recently emerged as a reasonable and rational diplomatic player and has assumed a historically peaceful role in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

In the international political order, the global hegemons’ era is about to finalise. The capacity for the sustainment of the “after hegemony“ has diminished, and been replaced by the conditions of the “post-after hegemony“. In the future, all potential hegemons will deny others’ hegemony.

As it was firstly held in Türkiye in 2015, the 9th of Istanbul Security Conference with the main theme of "Strategic Transformation in the Ecosystem: Climate, Nourishment, Demography, Meritocracy, Economy, Health, Education, Employment, Family-Youth and City Security" will be held by TASAM National Defence and Security Institute (NDSI) in Istanbul on 23-24 November 2023, in the 100th year of the founding of the Republic of Turkey.

4th Marine and Maritime Security Forum 2022 whose main theme “Asian Century, Maritime State Ecosystem, and Blue Planet“ was held by TASAM National Defence and Security Institute, together with the 8th Istanbul Security Conference on the date of 03 November 2022 in Ramada Hotel & Suites by Wyndham Istanbul Merter, simultaneously as a sub-event.

Istanbul Cyber-Security Forum whose main theme “Post-Security, Digital Revolution, Circular Economy, and Cyber Ecosystem“ was held by TASAM National Defence and Security Institute, together with the 8th Istanbul Security Conference on the date of 03 November 2022 in Ramada Hotel & Suites by Wyndham Istanbul Merter, simultaneously as a sub-event.

The historical and beautiful city of Istanbul has long been known as the bridge connecting the West and the East, and I hope that the current event will help to better understanding the two sides of the Bosporus Strait in order to reach a prosperous and developed region.

The theme of this conference; Post-security dilemmas, Integrations, Models and Asia is indeed appropriate considering the contemporary times that we live in because the threats to the national security of our respective nation-states has more than tripled thus posing complex security dilemmas.

The need for security is one of the basic human rights, and it includes not only protection from all-round sources and forms of threats, but also the availability of means for living for all subjects in one state.

Mister Chairman, distinguished participants, dear friends; It is my pleasure to take part in this very interesting "International Balkan Congress". I would like to express my appreciation for excellent organization and commend previous speakers which offered us a lot of fresh and new ideas and views on the present situation and the future of the Balkans.

First of all I would like to express gratitude to our hosts, the Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies (TASAM) and Tekirdağ Governorship, together with Namık Kemal University who, by organizing this International Congress, gave us the opportunity to meet each other and exchange views on issues in which we are all interested, since we share the same region, its past, present and future.