On October 29, from 13.45 till 14.50, presentation of the collection of articles “The War in Syria: Lessons for the West”, issued by the Centre for East European Policy Studies (CEEPS) will be held in the National Library of Latvia within Riga Conference.

Is the European Union and US involvement compatible to the challenges that Syria, the wider Middle East and Europe face? What shall the likely EU strategy be in order to resolve the Syrian conflict and to diminish the refugee crisis? What kind of motivation does Russia have when engaging in Syria and what would be the consequences? How can the West effectively neutralise the Daesh propaganda and win the battle for the hearts and souls? These are the questions and answers dealt by the authors – an international team, comprising the experts from Latvia, Germany, UK, Poland, USA and Turkey.

The new book will be presented by its co-editors – the CEEPS’s Executive director Andis Kudors, Member of the European Parliament Artis Pabriks and two of the book’s authors – media expert Liz Wahl and professor Julian Lindley-French under the guidance of the moderator, CEEPS’s researcher, who is also a co-author of the book, Māris Cepurītis.

The aim of this volume’s articles is to learn lessons from the involvement of the Western world in the Syrian crisis.

While commenting on the new study’s themes and choice of the title, the book’s co-editor A.Kudors indicates that nearly nothing can be characterized by the term “far” in the modern globalized world. The war in Syria is nearby – in Europe’s neighbourhood, it has its impact both on the European Union and NATO, therefore it cannot be left outside the scope of attention of European and US researchers.

The participants who have registered for Riga Conference, and media representatives will have the possibility to attend the event. However, all the interested persons are welcome to follow the course of the presentation online on the CEEPS’s website www.appc.lv or the Riga Conference Internet page www.rigaconference.lv. The working language of the event will be English.

The research has been carried out with with support of the Group of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament and Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

The program of the event available šeit.