During an interview, Yunus Emre Institute President Prof. Şeref Ateş touched upon the details of the Institute's African expansion policy, the activities carried out to carry Turkey's cultural heritage to Africa, the ties established on the basis of trust in Africa, and the 100^th anniversary targets of the Republic of Turkey.

100 REPRESENTATIVE OFFICES IN THE 100^th ANNIVERSARY, THE INSTITUTE'S NEXT STOP IS BURUNDI

Institute President Prof. Şeref Ateş stated, "Our goal for the 100^th anniversary of our Republic is to weave a worldwide cultural net with 100 representative offices. We aim to organize culture and art activities befitting the 100^th anniversary of the Republic with the goal of promoting Turkish at international standards and in the light of scientific methods, echoing Turkish all over the world and creating cultural interaction through various activities. Africa is important for us. With that importance we attach in mind, we opened our first representative office in Africa in Tanzania in 2023; Burundi is next in line."

In a written statement, Institute President Şeref Ateş noted that as Yunus Emre Institute, they aim to increase the number of people all over the world who have ties with Turkey and are friendly to Turkey by adopting the mission of increasing Turkey's recognition, reliability and reputation in the international arena.

"SEEING TURKISH PROGRESSING TOWARDS BECOMING A GLOBAL LANGUAGE IS OUR SOLE SOURCE OF MOTIVATION"

Stating that the Institute has many foreign representative offices in different regions of the world, Ateş said, "In 2010, we opened a representative office in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and started our activities in Africa. As part of our expansion policy in Africa, we continue to convey Turkey's cultural richness and deep-rooted dynamics to Africa through our representative offices in over 10 countries such as Morocco, Sudan, Somalia, Senegal, Tunisia, Nigeria and Rwanda in different regions of the continent, from West Africa to Sub-Saharan and South Africa. Today, we are honored and proud to open our representative office in Tanzania, one of the most important countries in Africa. Yunus Emre Institute is one of Turkey's most important cultural diplomacy institutions, interactively reflecting the Turkish nation, Turkish culture and art to the world. Seeing Turkish progressing towards becoming a global language in various regions of the world through our representative offices is our sole source of motivation."

TURKEY AND AFRICA ARE BUILDING A BOND BASED ON TRUST

Noting that they carry out activities in many regions from Europe to Far East countries, Ateş stated:

"Turkish language teaching, culture and arts are among Yunus Emre Institute’s main areas of activity. We contribute to the creation of a positive perception of Turkey by increasing cultural interaction between Turkey and other countries through culture and arts activities. On the other hand, to increase the recognition and prestige of Turkish in the world, we strive to teach Turkish to the world and to ensure that the people of other countries get to know Turkey directly and accurately; we carry out activities to this end. Turkey's expansion to Africa is based entirely on trust. It is a relationship where we see each other as equals, eye-to-eye. We are building trust in Turkey. Through our activities, we bring Turkey's cultural heritage to African countries, establishing a bond with Turkey based on trust and preparing the ground for opportunities to increase cultural interaction and dialogue. In addition, our representative offices consider the cultural differences between different countries in Africa and carry out activities specific to the dynamics of the countries. We organize various activities such as vocational training courses. To summarize, as our Institute, we value human beings for being human, and we carry out our activities in line with this philosophy."

"WE ARE BUILDING STRONG TIES WITH AFRICANS"

President Ateş stated that they have established strong ties with Africans through their activities and said, "We are establishing strong ties with Africans by conducting many activities in African countries where we have foreign representations, such as workshops, Turkish handicrafts, traditional Turkish archery courses, exhibitions, conferences, interviews, Turkish film screenings and gastrodiplomacy activities. We see the best examples of these strong ties in our trainees participating in our Turkish and art courses. We have trainees who travel across cities to attend our Turkish courses, who do not consider their visual impairment as an obstacle to learning Turkish, who translate works of Turkish literature to their mother tongues after learning Turkish, who learn Turkish handicrafts and make a living out of making them. I can easily say that Turkey and Turkish has left marks on many people all across Africa.”

PRESIDENT ATEŞ LISTED THE GOALS FOR THE 100^th ANNIVERSARY OF THE REPUBLIC

Regarding the targets set for the 100^th anniversary of the Republic, Prof. Ateş said, "2023 is the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. Our first goal in the 10^th anniversary of our Republic was to cover Turkey with an iron net. Today, in the 100^th anniversary of our Republic, our goal is to weave the whole world with 100 cultural nets. As the Institute staff and volunteers, we are fully committed to this goal.”