On 12 December, the John Lukacs Institute for Strategy and Politics (JLI) of the Eötvös József Research Center (EJKK) at the University of Public Service (NKE), in cooperation with the Topchubashov Center (Azerbaijan), organised an international conference entitled Conflict and Coexistence in the Middle East: Contemporary Dynamics. The event took place in the John Lukacs Lounge of the Ludovika Side Building.
In his opening remarks, Zoltán Egeresi, research fellow at the NKE EJKK JLI, emphasised that this conference represents the first tangible outcome of the cooperation with the Topchubashov Center. He added that, looking ahead, the partners sought to identify shared areas of interest to serve as the basis for future exchanges, one of which is the situation in the Middle East, the focus of the present conference. “The East is not a place, but a state of mind’, quoted in Hungarian by Rusif Huseynov, Director of the Topchubashov Center. As he noted, this marked his seventh visit to Hungary this year, and he could now confidently say that Budapest had become his favourite city—not only because of its architecture and atmosphere, but also because it consistently serves as a hub for intellectually stimulating discussions.
The first panel discussion of the conference, entitled Conflict Dynamics and Geopolitical Rivalries in the Middle East, was moderated by Zoltán Egeresi and featured Rusif Huseynov alongside László Csicsmann, Head of the Center for Contemporary Asia Studies at Corvinus University of Budapest, and Erzsébet N. Rózsa, professor at the Department of International Relations and Diplomacy of the Faculty of Public Governance and International Studies at NKE. The second panel, moderated by Ibrahim Mammadov, visiting research fellow at the Danube Institute, focused on Interethnic Relations and Identity Politics. In addition to Zoltán Egeresi, the panel included Turkan Bozkurt, Director for Outreach and Engagement at the IPEK Center (Canada), and Omar Sayfo, Research Director at the Migration Research Institute.
Further details on the conference are available in hungarian language on the University’s scientific portal, ludovika.hu.
Text: Tibor Sarnyai
Photos: Dénes Szilágyi