At the forefront of Turkey’s cultural and social outreach to communities it has historic ties, the Presidency of Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) boasts expanding projects to the country’s close ally Pakistan.
In a statement on Wednesday, YTB said it runs diverse projects in a wide array of fields in Pakistan and for Pakistani citizens. One of them was the Istanbul-Lahore Leadership Program, which was the result of an agreement between the YTB and Pakistan’s Punjab province. The program offered Turkish language classes to 25 Pakistani nationals who were invited to Turkey to learn the language and for a tour of the country.
YTB was also behind a protocol with the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, signed during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to the Asian country in February 2020. The protocol involves cooperation on diaspora affairs and exchange of experience in the field and aims to strengthen ties between Turkish and Pakistani diaspora abroad and developing joint mechanisms for the fight against their common problems, particularly xenophobia and anti-Islam sentiment.
The presidency’s probably most popular project for Pakistan is Türkiye Scholarships. State-sponsored grants that draw huge interest from international students every year, were delivered to thousands of Pakistani students. Between 1992 and 2022, there were 95,891 applications to the Scholarships from Pakistan and 1,371 students benefited from scholarships. Overall, 1,547 Pakistani students are now alumni of Turkish universities. A Pakistani alumni association for those who studied at Turkish universities established in Islamabad in 2020 also helps cementing ties between the two countries.
Elsewhere, as part of YTB’s programs for improving bilateral relations between Turkey and Asia-Pacific countries, Future Generations Academies, established in 2019, offers education and training to the youth from those countries, including Pakistan, on leadership, social media, journalism and history. The YTB also offered an online media training program for those countries and online workshops for people from countries including Pakistan as part of the "Asia Anew" initiative of the Foreign Ministry.