Need for effective communication by governments stressed at global summit

ISTANBUL

The need for governments to utilize communication effectively was stressed Saturday on the second and final day of the International Strategic Communication Summit Stratcom.

Addressing the summit in Istanbul, Murat Karagoz, the director-general for information at the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said that the world was passing through “an era of rapid transformations.”

“We are witnessing several power centers and competing agendas,” he said.

The root cause of this is the zero-sum mentality in addressing multiple crises from climate change to energy insecurity.

“It is safe to say that no single country can overcome these challenges alone,” he said, stressing the need for international solidarity and cooperation to tackle these challenges.

“However, in my judgment,” he added, “the main issue is lack of trust among states.”

Karagoz quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu who described this situation as “a vicious cycle.”

“He basically said that this lack of dialogue feeds distrust and distrust leads to division and polarization. And these divisions prevent any dialogue again,” Karagoz added. “So we need to break this vicious cycle.”

Tahsin Ertugruloglu, foreign minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and Rinor B. Nuhiu, an advisor to the Kosovar president, were also among the participants of the summit.

Earlier on Saturday, David Ryan Polgar, the founder of All Tech Is Human, a US-based non-profit founded in 2018, and a member of TikTok Content Advisory Council gave a talk on Building the Global Responsible Tech Community.

The international summit is addressing pressing issues in the field of strategic communication.

Gathered under the theme of Strategic Communication in the Age of Uncertainty, the platform features 52 speakers from more than 24 countries and an audience of over 3,000.