Brookings Doha Center Celebrates Two-Year Anniversary

To mark its two-year anniversary, the Brookings Doha Center hosted a reception on February 15 at the Sheraton Hotel in Doha. Guests of honor included H.E. Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Mutib Al-Rumaihi, assistant foreign minister for follow-up affairs of the State of Qatar, and Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution. Martin Indyk, vice president and director of foreign policy at Brookings, Kenneth Pollack, director of the Saban Center at Brookings were also present.

The anniversary reception was held to coincide with the closing of the seventh annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum co-organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar and the Saban Center at Brookings which, each year, brings together thought-leaders and policy makers from Muslim-majority states and communities for dialogue with key U.S. officials and policymakers. This year, the Forum was addressed by H.E. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of the State of Qatar, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of the Republic of Turkey, and U.S. Senator John Kerry.  The Forum audience also received an exclusive video address from  U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama.

The reception was also an opportunity for the international participants in the U.S.-Islamic World Forum to meet and get to know the Brookings Doha Center’s policy discussion community which includes Qatar-based business leaders, diplomats, religious leaders, academics, and the media. Also attending were Washington-based Brookings scholars Stephen Grand, director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, and Bruce Riedel, senior fellow at the Saban Center, as well as Shadi Hamid, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center.

The audience was addressed by H.E. Mohammed Al-Rumaihi, Strobe Talbott and Hady Amr. They highlighted the achievements of the Brookings Doha Center over the past two years. Amr and Talbott thanked the State of Qatar for their partnership in the creation of the Brookings Doha Center and the success of the U.S.-Islamic World Forum. They emphasized the importance of the Brookings tradition of independent, high quality policy analysis and the Brookings Doha Center’s contributions to research and the policy debate both in the U.S. and in the Middle East.