Boston, April 19, May 7: Turkish-Greek Student Workshop

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From: "HR-Net News Distribution Manager" <dist@hri.org>

Originally From: Zeynep Ogut <zogut@emerald.tufts.edu> via Demetri Kastritsis <kastrits@fas.harvard.edu> and Georgios Sarakinos <gsarakin@fas.harvard.edu>

To students and recent graduates of Turkish and Greek nationality:

A conflict resolution workshop for undergraduate and graduate students as well as recent graduates up to the age of 35 of Turkish and Greek nationality, will take place in April and May of 1999. This workshop will take the form of a series of discussions. Any young individual born and raised in Turkey or Greece can participate. Turkish- Americans or Greek-Americans as well as Turkish Cypriots or Greek Cyrpiots may not participate at this particular project but there may be future projects that will focus on their experience.

The project will be coordinated by us, the two student coordinators, Zeynep Ogut and Youly Diamanti with guidance from Tufts Fletcher School Professor Eileen Babbitt and Dr Pamela Steiner. Professor Babbitt runs the International Program on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School and Dr. Pamela Steiner is affiliated with the Harvard Medical School. Both Eileen and Pam are members of PICAR (Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution) and they have long worked together facilitating such meetings and they would work with us Turks and Greeks to facilitate our dialogue. Eileen has done a great deal of work on the Turkish-Greek relationship both in the USA and in Turkey and Greece.

The Workshop will consist of three meetings of two hours each. We are limiting the number of participants to a maximum of 24, 12 Turkish and 12 Greek students, on a first come first served basis. The first meeting will be on Monday April 19 from 7 to 9pm. The second and third will be on Friday May 7 from 2 to 4pm and from 4:30 to 6:30pm respectively. We hope that the participants will want to join us in a potluck dinner following our third meeting.

The workshop aims at addressing the psychological basis of past and present conflict and its cultivation through education, press and politics. At our meetings a limited group of Turkish and Greek participants will talk about how they view the opposite side and how they feel about the relationship of the two nations. Towards the end of the workshop it is possible for the participants to think jointly about plausible solutions to the Turkish-Greek problems.

The young people who will decide to participate should be willing to listen and learn how the people across the border feel. They should also be willing to commit to the three meetings in order to preserve a continuance of the constitution of the two groups throughout the project. The individual identities of the participants will be confidential and the results of the project will be made known to the public only with the consent of the participants. No tape or video recording will take place during the meetings. It is not for the purpose of any research. The workshop is being organized by the four individuals whose names appear in this e-mail and has been in the planning stage since Spring 1998. The workshop is being sponsored by the International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program at the Fletcher School.

With this e-mail we are inviting the Turkish and Greek student associations of several colleges and universities of the area to participate. Please let the members of your associations, as well as recent graduates, who come from any of these two countries know.

If this time the project is successful, we would like to repeat it with a greater publicity and participation.

We wish to welcome anyone interested in this project to our open meeting on March 29 at 7pm (place TBA) where Eileen Babbitt and Pam Steiner will talk with everybody about the purpose of the Workshop and how it will be conducted. For any additional questions please e-mail us. If you are interested in participating please e-mail us by March 25 giving us your name, phone number and e-mail address. We will make up a list with those interested and we will send them the information about where our open meeting will be held.

Sincerely,

Zeynep Ogut Youly Diamanti Turkish Student Coordinator Greek Student Coordinator The Fletcher School of Law Wellesley College and Diplomacy pdiamanti@wellesley.edu zogut@emerald.tufts.edu

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