20th Annual Bakeer Markar Commemoration Lecture by former Turkish PM today

The 20th Annual Bakeer Markar Commemoration Lecture will be held on 8August at 4:30 p.m. at the Lotus Room, BMICH. 

The 20th annual lecture will be delivered by the former Prime Minister of Turkey, Prof. Ahmet Davutoglu, on the theme ‘Multiculturalism as a Basis for Peace’. Professor Davutoglu, a former Foreign Minister of Turkey, has been considered as among ‘100 Leading Global Leaders’ by the Foreign Policy Magazine in 2010, 2011 and 2012. 

During his visit, Prof. Davutoglu is expected to meet with senior Government officials and will take part in a Youth Dialogue organised by the Adhil Bakeer Markar Foundation. The event is organised by the Bakeer Markar Centre for National Unity and participation is by invitation only.

Notable attendees at today’s event include Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Speaker of the Parliament Karu Jayasuriya and Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan.

These annual lectures organised by the Bakeer Markar Centre for National Unity focuses on fostering national unity and encouraging fresh thinking on unity in diversity, which are key areas the late Deshamanya M. A. Bakeer Markar sincerely dedicated himself to. 

Following the demise of M. A. Bakeer Markar, Bakeer Markar Centre for National Unity was established with the support of the close associates the Bakeer Markar family. The Centre was established 1997 and aims to promote, encourage, assist and foster activities for the advancement of national unity, inter communal amity, racial and religious harmony and peace amongst people, the vision of late M. A. Bakeer Markar. 

Prof. Ahmet Davutoglu is a Turkish academic, politician and former diplomat who was the Prime Minister of Turkey and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) from August 2014 to May 2016. He previously served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2014 and as Chief Advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from 2003 to 2009. He was elected as an AKP Member of Parliament for Konya in the 2011 general election and was re-elected as an MP in both the June and November 2015 general elections. He resigned as Prime Minister on 22 May 2016.

Professor Davoutoglu was born on 26 February 1959 in Konya. He completed his secondary education at Istanbul High School. In 1983 he graduated from Bosphorus University with a double major in Political Science and Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. He then completed his MA in the Department of Public Administration and received his PhD from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bosporus University.

He published several books and articles on foreign policy in Turkish and English. His books and articles have also been translated into several languages including Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Persian and Albanian. He is married to Sare Davutoglu and has four children. He speaks English, German and Arabic.