AFA organized an educational Turkey tour for the president of National Taiwan University Prof. Lee Sichen, and the president of National Sun Yat-sen University Prof. Yang Hungduen. 

The tour covered two cities: Istanbul and Ankara. In Istanbul we  visited Topkapi Palace, Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia Museum. We took a wonderful yacht tour at Boshorus, and enjoyed the wonderful view.

Our guests visited various institutions run by Gulen Movement. First we visited the Journalists and Writers Foundation which is a very active inter-cultural dialog organization working for peace and harmony among diverse cultures and religions. We also visited PASIAD, an association working for improving cultural and economic relations with Pacific countries. We also went to "Zaman" newspaper, the best-selling one in Turkey.

Both NTU and NSYSU signed and educational co-operation protocol with Fatih University in Istanbul. The protocol includes student and faculty exchange, academic material exchange and organizing joint conferences and seminars.

Our Ankara program was arranged by the International Association of Universities. We are grateful to the Chairman of the association Prof. Serif Ali Tekalan for his wonderful hospitality and arrangements. We visited the National Grand Assembly of Turkey, Ministry of Education, Council of High Education, TUBITAK (The Science and Technology Council of Turkey) and National Gazi University. Turkey's state television TRT made an interview with the presidents of the two universities and the interview is broadcasted during the news.

We would like to thank once more President Lee and President Yang for accepting our invitation. We had a very good time in Turkey. They all liked Turkey very much. We hope that this contributes significantly to the cultural and academic cooperation of the two countries.

Links to the related news in the web-sites of NTU and NSYSU:

http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~ntualumni/board/20090526new02.html

http://www.enewspaper.nsysu.edu.tw/D-paper/0520web02/papago.html 

Some pictures:

                                     We are enjoting the yacht tour at Bosphorus.

We are meeting with Prof. Serif Ali Tekalan hosted us at his home. We met his grand children. He has a very warm family.

                  We are meeting with the president of Gazi University Prof. Riza Ayhan

We are meeting with Prof. Mehmet Saglam, The Chairman of Commission for National Education, Culture, Youth and Sports in National Grand Assembly of Turkey