"First of all, Turkish public opinion perceived NATO as a Western and Christian organisation set up to support anti-Islam feelings," explains Colakoglu, adding that the rise of anti-Islam discourse in the West has fanned negative perceptions.

“JAMM is a vessel to promote cultural diplomacy,” the founders state on their website. “Our goal is to advance Arab and Iranian artists in the West, and Western artists in the East, and thus encourage further collaboration between the two,” they explained.

What if Washington had concluded that this competition required not more military might, but more and smarter investment in education, innovation, energy and the environment, and the full unfolding of America's soft power?

The East-West Center is a Hawaii-based, federally supported institution, long a key part of U.S. outreach to the countries of the Asia and the Pacific and a fixture in Honolulu.

Blair's further message is that the growing aggressive secularism in the West is the wrong response. It misreads and misconceives the nature of the 21st century and the best path to social harmony in a more globalised world... Blair is a champion of both hard and soft power.... Because the struggle is against an extremist ideology it must be met by a soft power strategy in terms of the battle of ideas.

Turkey is a bridge between East and West, the only Muslim member of NATO... It is also a free market success story and a geopolitical “soft power,” an agent of moderation, reconciliation, peace and stability in a volatile region stretching from the Middle East to Afghanistan/Pakistan and from the Mediterranean to the Balkans and the Caucasus.

the lawmakers called on the Foreign Ministry to take appropriate actions with regard to the regional developments as follows... Adopting transparent stances in defense of popular movements, opposing the foreign meddling, and employing the public diplomacy to reveal the Western powers’ double-standard approach toward the developments.

Linking the learning of a foreign language to its people, culture, history and encouraging youth exchange programmes would help bridging the social and cultural divide between the West and Middle Eastern societies, key officials of an organisation that works towards the betterment of individuals and communities through innovative education said