Offices and Departments

Public Affairs Section

The Public Affairs Section of the American Consulate General in Istanbul, is responsible for media, cultural, and educational affairs for the U.S. Mission to Istanbul.

Working closely with Turkish print and electronic media, Public Affairs organizes press conferences for Embassy and Consulate personnel and visiting U.S. officials. It also organizes interviews via telephone and digital video conferencing (DVC) with officials in the United States. Public Affairs provides information and assistance to Turkish organizations on a variety of subjects - politics, environment, business and economics, defense, international relations, civic education, English language teaching, and American culture.

Public Affairs in Turkey provides copies of official public statements about U.S. policies in the daily Washington File and Electronic Journals. On this homepage, through its local programs, and through the Ankara Information Resource Center and American Information Resource Center in Istanbul, Public Affairs provides background information on the issues that affect those policies. The IRCs are the best single sources of information about the United States to be found in Turkey.

Promoting cultural and educational ties with the United States is a major responsibility of Public Affairs in Turkey. It works closely with Turkish institutions in organizing exchanges, lectures, seminars, workshops, and presentations by U.S. academics, specialists, writers and artists. Public Affairs support American Studies programs in several universities (e.g. Bosphorus University in Istanbul), and coordinated relations with local organizations and institutions in Turkey such as CIVITAS Project.

Public Affairs also works with the Commission for Educational Exchange between the United States and Turkey commonly known as the Fulbright Commission which provides a rich variety of academic exchanges through its Humphrey and Fulbright scholarship programs and through educational advising.