The Department of International Relations at Bilkent University hosted two international workshops on September 12 and 13, 2026, bringing together over thirty scholars and policy practitioners from Europe, North America, and Asia. Organized in cooperation with the European Initiative for Security Studies, the Academic Workshop, “Security Architectures Under Strain,” and the Policy Workshop on “Great Power Politics and the Future of Alliances” were co-sponsored by the COST Action NetSec and the Royal Danish Defense College. The two workshops were honoured by keynote addresses from Deputy Foreign Minister Ambassador A. Berris Ekinci and Deputy Foreign Minister Ambassador Z. Levent Gümrükçü, who spoke respectively on “Energy, Connectivity and Economic Security in a Fragmented World” and “Rethinking the NATO Summit in Ankara” and by an opening address by Jurgis Vilčinskas, Deputy Head of the European Delegation to Türkiye, on “Prospects for Deeper EU-Türkiye Cooperation on Security and Defence.” Together, the two days reflected the Department’s continued commitment to convening the scholarly and policy communities working on the most consequential questions of contemporary international security.
