Lebanon commemorates Turkish poet Yunus Emre

By Wassim Seif El Din

BEIRUT (AA) – The Turkish Cultural Center in Lebanon held a concert on Friday evening to mark the 700th anniversary of the death of Turkish folk poet and mystic Yunus Emre.

The ceremony, dubbed “In the footsteps of Yunus”, was held by the Yunus Emre Institute at the Cultural Association Center in Tripoli.

In attendance was Turkish Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Baris Ulusoy, Turkish Cultural Center Director Ferkan Ozdemir, the coordinator of TIKA Agency in Beirut, Orhan Eden, and a group of citizens and Lebanese officials.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, famous Turkish musician Sedat Anar expressed his "happiness to come to Lebanon for the first time and to play and sing Yunus Emre's poems."

Anar said he already "performed concerts in many countries on the 700th anniversary of the death of Yunus Emre," promising to tour the world alongside his band “so that the spirit of Yunus Emre remains alive."

For his part, Ambassador Ulusoy praised the concert and the declaring of 2021 as the year of Yunus Emre as “a very important act."

"Sedat Anar and his band had a wonderful evening and we were very happy to organize such a party after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic," Ulusoy told Anadolu Agency.

Yunus Emre is a Turkish folk poet and mystic who lived in Anatolia from the mid-13th century to the first quarter of the 14th century.

*Writing by Ibrahim Mukhtar