This blog post was written by Hatchet reporter Anna Zandi.

The Turkish foreign minister discussed the changing nature of international relations at the intersection of the Middle East and Europe with students Thursday in Jack Morton Auditorium.

Ahmet Davutoglu emphasized Turkey’s commitment to an assertive foreign policy and the democratic free-market system that it developed over the last decade.

Davutoglu said Turkey supports the Arab Spring – a series of movements that began in December 2010 in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya to oust authoritarian regimes.

“Today in our region, the struggle, the conflict is not between Sunnis and Shiites, it’s not between Muslims and Christians, it’s not between Arabs and non-Arabs. It is a clash between Cold War structures and new dynamic forces of this society,” he said.

Dictatorships will falter with the rise of a new approach to governance based in “justice and equality,” he said.

Kani Gulam, head of the American Kurdish Information Network, asked Davutoglu if he could relate to former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

“I ask the question with a heavy heart. He was against prostitution in Manhattan, but patronized one himself. Your government fights against the Kurds inside Turkey, bans their language, but tells the world it is against authoritarianism,” Gulam said.

Davutoglu said there has been improvement and restated Turkey’s commitment to dispelling ethnic tension. He asserted that ethnic groups within Turkey will “solve [their] problems shoulder to shoulder.”