Rhodes Forum - World Public Forum "Dialogue of Civilizations"

During the seven years of its existence, the Forum has achieved some important results. The annual autumn session on the island of Rhodes, which in the beginning was the starting point for all of the Forum’s events, initiated the formation of an international network of experts. Today we are witnessing an enlargement of internal communications among the participants of the network and the enforcement of their coordination in promoting the idea of the dialogue. Today the annual meetings at Rhodes represent a major event of the World Public Forum. Rhodes Forum has become an open platform for discussions, where experience is exchanged and the true spirit of dialogue is developed.

Every autumn since 2003 the ancient Greek island of Rhodes hosts a session of the World Public Forum «Dialogue of Civilizations» called the Rhodes Forum that brings together public figures and statesmen, academics, religious figures and representatives of the arts, mass media and business spheres from all over the world. The sessions of the WPF «Dialogue of Civilizations» proved the urgency and efficacy of the Forum by brining the focus of world public opinion to the problems of intercultural dialogue and the need to work out instruments to make interaction among cultures and civilizations possible. The results achieved by the Forum give a hope for further harmonization of international relations and strengthening of stability in the world.

The participants of the Forum’s programs or Rhodes Forum claim that the dialogue of cultures and civilizations is quite possible. According to Vladimir Yakunin, the World Public Forum was constantly working in an international atmosphere of events that seemingly proved quite the opposite. But meeting at the Forum’s events the representatives of different civilizations have reaffirmed each time that beyond political sphere a dialogue on the level of civil society is not only desirable and necessary, but it is also practically possible. «Now the logic of Forum’s development has led us to the need of making this dialogue more substantial; in a way that would generate the functioning structures of a dialogue. Dialogue of Civilizations is called upon to develop a new culture of international partnership, co-operation and interaction, it has to foster new values and bring in new goals to the international community» — said Vladimir Yakunin.