The Israeli Palestinian Journalists’ Forum of the International Press Institute (IPI) began today following an opening dinner and award ceremony on Tuesday night at Vienna’s historic Hofburg Palace.

The opening dinner was marked by the presentation of IPI’s first Dialogue for Press Freedom Award to Turkish journalist and WINPEACE co-founder Zeynep Oral. Handing over the award on behalf of IPI, Austrian Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said that Ms. Oral had brought a new dimension to the search for peace between Turkey and Greece by focussing on women.

“Really I’m very happy, and I’m very proud of it. As I just thanked everybody who worked for WINPEACE (…), really we’ve been working very hard just to create an atmosphere of peace,” Oral said in remarks following the award ceremony.”We cannot solve the problems between the two countries, but we can show that problems can be solved without violence.”

Ms. Oral co-founded the Women’s Initiative for Peace (WINPEACE) in 1996 with Margarita Papandreou of Greece following the dispute over an island in the Aegean Sea which brought the two nations to the brink of a military confrontation involving sovereignty rights. WINPEACE’s aim is to bring women from the two countries together “to sustain solidarity and peace in the region.”

“Ms. Oral’s work and the work of WINPEACE has helped prompt the press in Turkey and Greece to publish even-handed articles about ‘the other’. Free from hostility, free from negative stereotypes, free from blind nationalist fervour. In so doing, she has shown the power of media to advance the cause of peace and respect for human dignity,” said IPI Director Alison Bethel McKenzie.

The Press Freedom Dialogue Award recognizes a journalist, or journalists, who through their devotion to press freedom and their profession have helped advance dialogue between nations and/or peoples.

Among the guest speakers at last night’s event were Slovakian Prime Minister Iveta Radicova; Janis Karklins, UNESCO assistant director-general for communication and information; Zuheir Elwazer, ambassador of the Permanent Mission of Palestine in Austria; and Yossi Beilin, former justice minister and deputy foreign affairs minister of Israel.

The Israeli Palestinian Journalists’ Forum is a two-day event during which IPI, as part of its six-decades-old mission to foster peace and understanding among people by bringing journalists closer together, is gathering Israeli and Palestinian journalists from across the political spectrum for dialogue talks in Vienna. The two days of closed sessions with the Israeli and Palestinian journalists, which includes editors and reporters, are being moderated by a neutral media figure with experience of the complexities of the region. The sessions are of an introspective nature, dealing with how journalists in the region report, and the degree to which they are able to report freely and fairly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and peace drives.

Prime Minister Radicova, who like Vice Chancellor Spindelegger showcased in her speech the good relations between Slovakia and Austria as an example of how entrenched conflict situations can be overcome, was optimistic about the outcome of the Forum.

“Dialogue has a sense only if you are not only speaking and talking, but hearing, listening,” she said. “Who, if not a journalist, has to have an ability not only to write and speak but to listen to each other? … If they (the Israeli and Palestinian journalists) are really open-minded and not closed to ideology or political limits, then there is a chance to find a way for new social networking and this is a very good first or second step for building bridges.”

During his speech, Yossi Beilin urged all people engaging in dialogue not to find themselves acting simply as advocates of their countries, but to listen to one another. “When you understand the other side, it doesn’t mean that you fall in love, but still at least you have to understand what the motivation of the other side, is,” he told IPI.

Added Bethel McKenzie: “When journalists can understand each other, it helps people understand each other,” she said, adding that she hopes “the relationships built tonight will last.”