The Atlantic Council of Turkey, which is working to increase public involvement in NATO affairs, gathered analysts from various countries and held its 18th International Antalya Conference on Security and Cooperation to discuss the future of the alliance.

NATO's old reflexes might complicate the task of improving the alliance's public image, which emerges as an important need if the 28-nation bloc wants to fulfill its future missions, an academic at an international conference warned Friday.

Getting more and more aware of the importance of having effective international relations in many aspects of a city’s and its people’s life, the local authorities in the southern city of Antalya seem to have been paying attention to deploying the city at an international platform more than ever nowadays.

For some time now, Greek-Turkish relations have been witnessing a good mixture of silent and public diplomacy efforts with frequent high-profile appearances here and there, leading observers of foreign policy to the belief that something is definitely up in solving the decades-long problems between the two neighbors.

The first graduate program in Kurdish language and culture is a rare bright spot in Turkey's initiative to improve the cultural rights of its Kurdish minority, whose language was banned for decades.

Many believe that America's greatest export is its culture; from blockbuster Hollywood films and TV series to jeans and iPods, there is little doubt that American cultural products have profound dissemination and market consumption around the globe. But few would have imagined that one day Turkish citizens would be cheering on pro-wrestlers in Istanbul.

Last semester, I had planned to do a research project on the public diplomacy of the Kurds and Palestinians. A while back, during the snowpocalypse that was blanketing the nation’s capital, I made my way back east to work on the aforementioned project.

In the recent days, controversial Turkey-Iran relations come to the fore. According to Turkish Today’s Zaman Newspaper, Iran offered to resume nuclear talks with the United States and other world powers on Nov. 15 after pushing for a shift of venue to Turkey. “The P5+1 -- the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany -- had earlier offered talks on Nov. 15-17 in Vienna.