Istanbul University will soon launch a laboratory to promote Arabic in Turkey.
Secretary-General of the King Abdullah International Center for Arabic Language Service, Abdullah Al-Washmi; and President of Istanbul University, Yunus Swailet, signed Thursday a memorandum of cooperation to establish the laboratory at the university’s College of Literature.
The agreement also includes holding periodic exhibitions, conferences and seminars on the Arabic language.
“The King Abdullah center, functioning under the supervision of the Minister of Higher Education Khaled Al-Anqari, forges partnerships and agreements with government and non-government organizations inside the Kingdom and abroad, to spread the Arabic language,” said Al-Washmi in a statement reported by the Saudi Press Agency yesterday.
The language laboratory will see cooperation between the two parties on linguistic research, joint studies of common interest, translation of works from Arabic to Turkish and vice versa, and the exchange of scientific, intellectual, and cultural publications. The agreement also provides for consultancy exchanges with Saudi professors sent to teach at the laboratory and Turkish students going to Saudi colleges and universities, he said.
Turkish researchers on the Arabic language will also be given assistance in the Kingdom, the agreement said.
He added that the laboratory, which is being established with the help of the cultural attaché at the Saudi Embassy in Turkey, would expand cultural and academic collaboration between the two countries.
Chairman of the center’s Board of Trustees, Muhammad Al-Hadleq; Adviser at the center, Nasser Al-Ghali; and Saudi Consul General in Istanbul, Abdul Wahhab Sheikh, were among those who attended the signing ceremony. The King Abdullah center also organized a number of seminars and talks related to the Arabic language in Turkey recently. The center’s officials urged the Arabic department at the university to organize a joint conference on the promotion of the language.
