(CNSNews.com) – President Obama’s forthcoming European visit has a crammed itinerary, including gatherings of the G-20, NATO and European Union, but it is his visit to Turkey that may draw the most attention in the Islamic world.
 
Although the White House has said little yet about the Turkey leg of the tour, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier this month said Obama would attend a meeting in Istanbul of the Alliance of Civilizations (AoC), a U.N. project aimed at building bridges between Islam and the West.
 
AoC director Marc Scheuer told a press conference on Thursday that as far as he was aware, Obama’s presence had been agreed upon, and “what is being discussed now are simply the modalities of his presence.”
 
“It should be a very important feature, because it will be the first participation of the new president in any major U.N. or U.N.-related meeting,”
 
Turkish officials, cited in Turkish media, say Obama will visit the Alliance gathering on April 7, after meeting with the country’s leaders in Ankara one day earlier.
 
For Marwan Al Kabalan, media and international relations lecturer at Damascus University in Syria, Obama’s visit to Turkey is significant because “it is quite unusual that a U.S. president visits the region without stopping in Israel or meeting Israeli officials.”
 
“Instead, Obama made Turkey, a major Muslim country, one of his first foreign destinations,” he said in a column in Dubai’s Gulf News. “One must also remember that Turkey is ruled by an Islamic-oriented government and that it has strong ties with other Islamists in the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah.”
 
Obama has pledged to improve U.S. ties with the Islamic world that have been strained by terrorism, clashes over religious symbols and human rights abuses in Islamic states, Western counterterror practices, and U.S. foreign policies including the war in Iraq and its stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
 
He also indicated, last December, that during his first 100 days in office he hoped to deliver a major speech to the Muslim world from a key Islamic city.
 
Although it remains unclear whether this will occur during his visit to Turkey, his anticipated participation at the AoC event could provide such a platform.
 
But the AoC initiative is not without controversy, and some observers are questioning the wisdom of the president’s attendance.
 
Co-sponsored by a Turkish prime minister whom opponents accuse of harboring Islamist sympathies and his socialist Spanish counterpart, the AoC was established as a U.N. initiative with the strong support of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2005.
 
It held its inaugural forum in early 2008 in Madrid, and the Istanbul meeting will be its second. Among those expected to be present is former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, whose earlier “dialogue of civilizations” initiative lay some of the groundwork for the AoC.
 
In 2007 Ban appointed Jorge Sampaio, a former president of Portugal, to run the project, which boasts a secretariat and offices in the U.N. headquarters precinct in New York.
 
The AoC’s agenda was built on a 2006 report by a “high-level” eminent persons group which analyzed the state of relations between Islam and the West and put forward policy recommendations.
 
Among its findings was that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was “a major factor in the widening rift between Muslim and Western societies.” It also determined that the use of terms like “Islamic terrorism” had “contributed to an alarming increase in Islamophobia which further exacerbates Muslim fears of the West.”
 
Because of terrorism “committed by radical groups on the fringes of Muslim societies,” it said, Islam was seen by some to be a violent religion, a view that was “at best manifestly incorrect and at worst maliciously motivated.”
 
Free speech debate
 
The high-level group suggested that media coverage of Islam-Western relations be monitored, and that positive coverage be rewarded. Out of this recommendation has arisen a “rapid response media mechanism,” providing media with “experts and analysts who can make a positive contribution to debates on sensitive cross-cultural issues.”
 
These experts will “develop messages that help frame contentious issues in less polarizing terms and offer insightful and nuanced perspectives on complex debates.”
 
During a visit to Iran last year, AoC chief Sampaio said at a press conference, “There is a balance to be found between freedom of expression and respect for religion and for religious feelings and principles.”
 
Some critics see in the AoC’s attempts to shape media coverage parallels with a “defamation of religion” campaign long promoted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the bloc of Islamic states at the U.N.
 
“The Alliance has become another megaphone for some of the U.N.’s most troubling campaigns,” Claudia Rosett, journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in a column this week.
 
“In deference to Islamic anti-blasphemy laws, the Alliance favors a global gag on free speech.”
 
“There is major cause for concern considering the AoC’s ongoing support of constraints on freedom of expression and speech,” Heritage Foundation scholar Brett Schaefer said in a recent memo.
 
Recalling Sampaio’s statement in Iran, Schaefer said, “These types of platitudes are unworthy of a true effort to promote frank dialogue.
 
“Freedom of expression means little if it is subject to the sensitivities and feelings of those who may be offended by personal statements on, or media coverage of, religious matters.”
 
Schaefer said Obama should spend his time in Turkey “more constructively” than attending the AoC “talkfest.”
 
“The President should dedicate his time to soliciting Turkey’s cooperation on serious foreign policy objectives, such as halting Iran’s nuclear program.”
 
The AoC’s Scheuer said Thursday the Istanbul forum would bring together government leaders and representatives, religious leaders, philanthropists, academics and activists, in a bid “to help reduce tensions across cultural divides that threaten to inflame existing political conflicts or trigger new ones.”
 
The agenda would include initiatives to build bridges and restore trust in the “post-Gaza situation,” he said. Israel is not among the 85 countries that have joined the AoC, although Scheuer said it was free to do so.
 
As for the U.S., having up to now “decided to stay clear” of the initiative, it now “seem[ed] to be moving closer to the Alliance,” he said.
 
On the question of “defamation of religion” versus freedom of expression, Scheuer said the AoC “tried to stay clear from importing that debate” which was taking place in other forums and “giving rise to rather entrenched positions.”
 
Instead, it endeavored to address concrete issues, he added.

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