Armenia-Turkey Media Roundtable and Journalism Award Ceremony in Yerevan

GPoT Center together with the Armenia-based Yerevan Press Club (YPC) held the annual "Turkey-Armenia Journalism Award" ceremony on June 4, 2012 in Yerevan.

The winners of the 2012 award, Lilit Gasparyan of Yerkir Media TV and Hilal Kaplan of Yeni Şafak, were nominated by a jury composed of Armenian and Turkish media experts as well as winners of the 2011 award, Mr. Kadri Gürsel of Milliyet daily newspaper and Eduard Mkhitaryan of Gala TV. The Istanbul ceremony of the Turkey-Armenia Journalism Award 2012 will take place on the premises of the British Consulate General on June 14.

The ceremony held in Yerevan was part of the 3-day "Armenia-Turkey Media Roundtable", which took place with the participation of media experts, civil society activists and academics from Armenia and Turkey as well as participants of the Turkey-Armenia Media Reporting Bus Tour - a two weeks long activity implemented by GPoT Center in collaboration with the Eurasia Partnership Foundation.

On the first day of the roundtable, GPoT Center Director - Dr. Mensur Akgün delivered a speech on current developments in Turkey's domestic politics and its implications on the Armenia-Turkey relations. The Deputy Director of GPoT Center, Dr. Sylvia Tiryaki moderated one of the sessions on the second day of the conference.

The Journalism Award, Media Reporting Bus Tour as well as Media Roundtable were implemented as part of the USAID-sponsored "Support to Armenia–Turkey Rapprochement (SATR)" project, which aims to support Armenia-Turkey rapprochement through developing of new business partnerships and regional professional networks, engaging civil society in alliance-building to further contribute to Armenia-Turkey normalization, and establishing a favorable environment for state-to-state dialogue and interaction.