Fethullah Gulen and the Gulen Movement

My name is Laura Peterson, I am a journalist in Washington. I will be starting this fall as a student of International Relations. So I was actually very fortunate to be seated next to the Director of the Department of International Relations tonight at dinner. We had a very stimulating table . . . we talked a lot about Turkey’s role in the world, and he sort of affirmed my belief that Turkey is a very important country for the world to understand . . . not only because of its physical place in the world, but because of the richness of its diversity . . . the mix of politics, culture and religion that is so interesting.

This is actually my third time in Turkey and I came here 5 years ago on fellowship where I spent 2 months here in Istanbul and I was never able to travel to the rest of Turkey, but this trip has afforded me the opportunity to see parts of Turkey that I knew were very important to understand in life. So I would like to extend my thanks . . . to all of you in your community for giving us the support and ability to learn more about Turkey and to understand it better, which I think will aid all of us as we go back out to our lives in Washington. Thank you.