>> later today speak for justice ruth bader ginsburg will talk about the editor in chief of forward magazine about the intersection between law, media and jewish life. live coverage starts at 7:00 p.m. eastern. coming up senator majority mitch mcconnell and paul ryan avenue scheduled at the republican party retreat in west virginia. live coverage of that begins at 230 thymic eastern on c-span. tonight president trump will address the gop retreat a bit earlier will be back here in washington to deliver remarks at the republican national committee meeting at the trump hotel. live coverage starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> at last month's world economic forum in switzerland talk they talked about the future and -- thomas freedom

moderates. >> welcome, everybody. thank you for skipping lunch and coming to our panel. the subject today is finding a new equilibrium in the middle east and we have a terrific panel representatives of the region and try left, foreign minister of saudi arabia, deputy prime minister from turkey, administer secretary defense minister from germany, prime minister of bahrain and foreign minister from the uae. i thought i would begin by taking a couple minutes to talk about what i think are the forces of disequilibrium that are impacted in the middle east or impacting the whole world and give each of the ministers a chance to talk about what they see as things that created a disequilibrium but how we stabilize the region.

my very short take on the world is we are in the middle of three climate changes at once and we are in the middle of the change of requirement of the climate and were going for what i call later to now and i was growing up in america in the 60s and 70s later was when you can fix that river or clean the lake and prepare that forest and say that orangutans and you can save it now or you can save it later. but today's later is officially over. later will now be too late so whatever you will say and we see this in the middle east rising temperatures and rising water issues among others. we will change the climate of globalization and were going to a world that is interconnected to a world that is hyper connected to a world that is now interdependent and interdependent world is a different world from an american view in an interdependent world first of all your friends can

kill you faster than your enemies so if some big european banking systems were to go bankrupt tomorrow that would affect me in america very much and in europe, that's eu and the nato and they are allies but your friends can fill you faster than your enemies in an interdependent world. second you get a geopolitical inversion in an interdependent world where your arrival is falling becomes more dangerous than arrivals writing. the america if china take six more islands in the south china sea personally i could not care less but if china loses 6% growth, oh my goodness, this room will be basically empty. that's a climate change when you move from an interconnected world to an interdependent world. lastly we are seen a change in the climate of technology. every company today can and therefore must do five things. they must be able to analyze

optimize, publicize, customize and digitize and optimize job service. i flew over here on united airlines and the sensors in those ge engines were connected to ge and they were telling united airlines exactly what altitude to fly to get optimal energy efficiency that will trip. you can optimize them. you can analyze. i can now thanks to big data find the needle in the haystack of my data as the norm and not the exception. i can prophesies and you may have seen ibm seminar where the repairman comes to a high-rise building tells the doorman i'm to fix the elevator and the doorman says the elevator is not broken and ibm repayment says i know but it will be in six weeks and three days. i can predict analytics and i can customize just for foreign ministers from saudi arabia and i can now digitize and automatized every job, product or service but you put those

five together and that they climate change. you put all three of those climate changes together and you have huge pressures on every country in the world. and for real countries sometimes these pressures are overwhelming and we are seeing more governments collapsing and borders changing. and certainly this is affected the middle east region among others. creating what is the new divide in the world which is no longer east-west north or south communist capitalist but the developer is between a world of disorder and world of order. that is my macro for the things and if i could call on mr. i'll start on the line and if you could give us a sense of what you see is the forces that is a challenging stability in the region and what do you think are the best pathways forward? >> i agree with what you said in the beginning and you have a great setup.

the challenges we have in the sectarianism extremism and inefficient government and unaccountable government and government that is not transparent and looking backwards and forwards as i think the solution to that is making government more efficient and more accountable and more transparent in providing opportunities for our youth so they can realize their hopes and dreams and ambitions and you do that by opening up the society and you do that by opening up areas for investment and as well as foreign and you do that by streamlining regulations and making it simple to incorporate and making it simple to start companies. you do that by allowing people to do what they do best which is connect with others and deal with others. i always say in the middle east we have two competing visions and we have the vision of light which is what i just described and we have a vision of darkness in the vision of darkness is secretary and is him trying to restore an entire that was

destroyed thousands of years ago. it's using terrorism to interfere in the affairs of other countries so you can promote the revolution and imperialistic statute even if the cost of the well-being of your people. that is the dark nation and it's called iran. the other one is called saudi arabia and i think history has shown that light always prevails over darkness and i think one we have that issue settled our region will move too much more better place interesting. >> thank you i do agree that the two main faultlines as it dries the middle east down at the faultlines i think the solution to middle east and problem is not true creation of new borders because that would be a call for perpetual conflict because the middle east will make the middle

east so incredible for the civilization is the diversity in terms of religion, ethnicity, and i think the best path for the middle east also is to more fundamental rights for everyone and hopefully more democracy but it is difficult and i think if we can go back at one point there was highlighted by my friends is that youth is another issue between now and 2015 you will get working age preparation growing by hundred 80 million in the middle east are not africa region is over the next essentially 30, 35 years you have an extra hundred 80 million coming on board looking for

jobs. ultimately once you overcome the challenges, today's challenges the next challenge will be diversification and skills were better jobs for these 180 million youth that will come on board and the unappointed rate is already high so that's the second challenge. it's a major one is something we cannot overlook clearly stable and prosperous peaceful middle east is in the national interest of all of us and i think we should prosper with our neighbors and that is clearly the key you either go down with your neighbors or prosper. my final statement is that over the last few years we began to recognize the significance of having a functioning state and i'm not talking about of

prospering as a state in the neighborhood that is functioning that can take control of its own borders and. export of terror. that has been a huge challenge for us and it's the world's largest refugee hosting country. three and a half million cities including 370,000 syrian and kurds who still settled in turkey which we welcome, of course, we do our best but that is create. >> you have that many district. >> yes, to be exact, three and a half million and if you had 200,000 iraqis to take the number two about three-point to 7 million. the way the us mortgage, subprime crisis the us wasn't exporting houses to europe and elsewhere and that problem affected and similarly problems

affect all of us. i think that is why we need to have a very strong sense against all form of extremism and terrorism. there's no question. we agree on this. i think we should try to solve our problems for more dialogue but definitely we should not take various ethnic groups as they the way you pick up football club. >> you get to be the outside experts. >> i would not like to be the outside expert but i would like to represent the european interest. the middle east is our immediate neighbor and you are our neighbors and therefore we have a vested interest in civility and friendship on both sites. i can just keep on taking your point that beginning with terror, terror needs always a

soil on which it is growing and this horrible, cruel, ideology but the soil is also growing or was growing because of feeling of lack of perspective and lack of influence and marginalization the question whether we will defeat terror on one hand is a military one but on the other is a strong question whether we will be able to give people a perspective in that region and the first point i see also a strong role of europe to be our partners together engaged in reconstruction and destabilization and reconciliation because it needs many to work on these fields together. second point is we see in the region a lot of different

interests and syria and iraq and many, many different powers have been protecting their interest and have which was normally a complex that should have been settled elsewhere and therefore my second emphasis is on if we want to solve problems in that region and come to a new equilibrium it can only be under the umbrella of the united nations because there are so many different interests that the one and only place where everyone has to stick to the rules we once agreed and no one is the winter or the loser of the united nations so makes the united nations and the genevan process and its the second of the main goals and the third one is if you look at the area and

other conflict places in the world the new dimension is also the cyber dimension so besides the traditional fight against terror which is a military one besides the traditional reconstruction and process we all know is important we have the strong process within social media which is one kind of narrative will be the dominant and the persuading one and to be better altogether we will share the same interest of moving towards a peaceful world and moving toward democracies and human rights to share this narrative in a broadway in cyberspace and to promote it will be one of the major talks we have to fill. >> thank you.

>> thank you very much for inviting me to this session. we talk about change in the region of the middle east is used to change. very much use to it for decades. we all remember about this modern history some important events that made a lot of change in our area and the collapse of the empire and modern-day turkey and the revolution in iraq and egypt and change in the arrival of i'm jumping quickly and the arrival of the cold where. the cold war maybe was in some points volatile but in the middle east it was a recipe for understanding between the different powers but at the same time the middle east powers were not there and calling all the shots because we hardly had any hardware at that time to be able to do it ourselves. to date also we had the change

but a lot of middle eastern countries are party to that change they are partners in our change towards either protecti protecting, prosperity, making everyone a stakeholder in the region through their own prosperity or for destruction and with their own weapons. this is what we are facing now in the middle east. there are two different views as mentioned in one side is to continue to work with our allies and in working together bring the region together and in our path to prosperity in the other ones they want to take advantage of this very weak stage of moving from one phase to another and advancing their own aims. it's very important here for the world powers and mainly hear him talking about the united states and russia and they both have huge interests in the middle east. to work together to continue to

find an understanding is defined in equilibrium because we would leave it to the countries of the region to do it themselves now at this huge conflict happening it will not necessarily produce the right outcome for us for the future and the main aim that we need to concentrate on here is to protect the nation's. some would say those nationstates were created in some way and whatever the christian reason was we can look back to that and if it was a line in the sand i'd rather keep that imperfect line in the sand that is internationally recognized and try to seek another one and try to reach another one risking instability and chaos in order to reach another important point. let's say and try to defend it and try to work together and eventually some of the countries will have to realize that whatever aims they have for themselves be at the supporting

proxies will not work and that is what we need to achieve. thank you. >> thank you, tom. i think number one is we need to shift gears. we need to shift gears from the current normal which is chaotic and religiously infused and a lot of blood being spilt for ideologies and things like that. move from the current normal to normal. normal means security. normal means the ability of a state to produce opportunity and normal of course means civic speech rather than states that are trying to look into the past and find the golden age. in a recent last year's survey on [inaudible] they clearly identified two main issues that they considered paramount:

unemployment and extremism. this is the voice of the future. vis-à-vis the extremism we should also shift so basically we are winning the war against terrorism but we need now to win the war against extremism. we've been all talking about terrorist finance and we need now to speak about extremist finance because i think that is essentially the normal evolution of where we need to go. we need to shift from the current normal to normal and from normal to the future. we need to be ordinary states similar to states for the far east or in europe or other areas. there is no exclusiveness that we should not come and brandish that exclusiveness. we should think of our solutions as local and we should create the solutions but also look to globalization. >> i will ask a few follow-up

questions and then open it up to the floor. i know we have knowledgeable people here. speaking of change, one of the biggest change agencies in saudi arabia is the conference and what does not the world understand about the crown prince? >> i think people are not using to him moving quickly. i think they don't see him moving boldly and our population is 70% under the age of 30. they're probably the most connected in terms of social media in the world and many people know what is going on several hundred thousands of them have been around the world from japan both young men and women and like i said earlier their hopes and dreams and ambitions and they want it now. don't want to wait 20 years or 30 years. the expect good government and the expect transparent government, efficient government. the expect the ability to do

what they set out to do without much hindrance and so you have to open up the path and get out of the way. that is our country will rise. in order to do this you have to have a fundamental transformation of our country and open up areas that were previously not open, entertainment, recreation and open up the meeting space and allow more public discussion and deal with corruption in a clear and strong manner. you need to attract investments and come up with project. for example, when we have a project in the north that will probably end up costing -- >> 's memo that is. >> it's a futuristic city that were building along the red sea that will be connected to each of jordan and it will be based on a technology, artificial intelligence and it will be a clean energy and it will be a magnet for high-tech industry and for entrepreneurs.

people say you can do other things that money and well, john kennedy could have been other things with money he spent on the moon shot but he wanted the moonshot because it transformed america. it restored energy in america and restored ingenuity and proclivity in america and so for us this is what this project will be doing. we want one of the signature moments and the signature projects for it and in the past people have always criticized him for moving too slowly. now that we are moving fast people are surprised and their heads are spinning and they're saying why are you moving so quickly and when it comes to foreign policy and national security policy. for many years i used to hear people say the saudi's want to hold hotels will we go to battle for them and you are a strong country and pop country and you should leave. then when we lead because

there's a vacuum when america retreated and into this vacuum evil forces flow when we lead people are stunned and save my god, what are you doing and are you being reckless. we are not. we are leading. if you want us to lead, support us. if you want us to support then lead. but we can't be in a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation. what people don't understand about is people understand what he is trying to do. he wants to tune saudi arabia into a normal country into an innovative country, into a country that is strong domestically as well as internationally. he wants to empower youth and empower women. he wants to make a country an example of the arab and islamic world and he thanks we should take our rightful place among the countries of the world that are innovative and dynamic and strong. in order to do this, like i

said, change has to be comprehensive. it has to be in line with the expectations of the people especially your young who are under the age of 30. >> thank you. minister, what does america maybe not understand about turkey's current dilemma right now with the post isis, syria, post isis iraq and we've got a vacuum there now that isis has been defeated and who will fill that vacuum? what is your take on it? do we fully understand this to get a clash between two [inaudible]? >> well, sometimes you also find it hard with what our friends are up to and there is a form of communication but there is what

they also do on the ground and there is there are inconsistencies. we have been very frank about that so let me give you perspective. for decades in turkey prior to my government there was policy denying about the kurds and we came in and we said look, this is wrong and we will put an end to it and we want to address our ethnic problems through more democracy and in return for terrorist pkk and there was this reconciliation process. it was going reasonably well. the power vacuum, lack of functioning state in syria and part of iraq, was that there was this fertile ground for the lack

of terrorist organization which is on eu and us territories to acquire more weapons and more sophisticated ones adequate for people and will become even a more formidable threat, national security threat for turkey. what puzzles us is that the us has opted to choose a terrorist organization to fight another vicious barbaric terrorist organization. that is really where there is dialogue and we, you know of is a, would like to see a more move towards recognition of these concerns so what turkey is saying is this. of course, there are [inaudible] is a big threat to humanity. that is why turkey moved into

syria. but we have been experiencing significant terror attacks, not only from [inaudible] but from pkk. ethnically, i am occurred and i come from a very humble background. my parents were illiterate farmers. the biggest kurdish city doesn't lie on iraq you are syrian border but the biggest is in stable. they are well integrated carving out a piece of territory from turkey cannot be a solution. that's what i was referring to and that it therefore i think the support which is clearly a subsidiary of pkk is a national security threat for us. ...

that there will be a better understanding as we go forward and hopefully we can all work together to create a unified, unified, stable and hopefully prosperous series because it's now at our national interest, security interest. we have no interest in one single inch of syrian territory. we have no quarrel with kurtz or with anybody else here and we want to be a constructive player in the region to help as i sit at the beginning to prosper with our neighbors. >> is america today a source of equilibrium or disequilibrium in the middle east when you think of what president trump did on

jerusalem, which was a real departure from the global consensus? threatening to break the iran agreement which is really a you and bless the agreement that the eu was a partner in. what kind of challenge does this post for america's european partners? >> it is quite a challenge. because the unpredictability behind that what we see is hard to cope with. i have to say that my colleagues side, my colleague, jim mattis, the defense minister, it is an excellent cooperation. he is highly experienced. he's a friend of europe. he has huge knowledge. he is a supporter of nato. so he is very reliable and it's good to have him there in the pentagon.

but your question leads me to another point. i've heard the word power vacuum a few times here. yes, it is a bear. so is of the existence of this power vacuum, it's difficult to deal with it without any question, not a call on us to step in and take on our responsibility, as hard as it is it's easily said and difficult to do. but this is what i see or europe to be more reliable in taking on responsibility but . we just created the european defense union to speak with one voice, foreign affairs, too, to be a reliable partner and to foster this process of modernization you have been talking here. the second point that i i see d talk about this power vacuum or the problem to predict the direction of the white house in

difficult, different fields of politics. if i look at syria and iraq, it has been impressive that there was seeing a threat of daesh, coalition against terror which included 70 countries, about 30 around were active in the fight against daesh and we were successful. we are very different but we had one main goal. that was defeat daesh. we are not totally done. they're still pockets and the ideology is still there in the room but this was unified. now in a second step come with having defeated, mainly defeated daesh, the problem will be that we did not fall back on all these small ethnicity conflicts and whatever the different interests are in the region to have a fragmented series you, fragmented iraq, to keep them

together and to keep us together with this one vision of peace and stability and prosperity as you just pointed it out. that brings me to the third point. i have seen that russia step in a lot in syria. over time, russia will not be able to maintain its military personnel and material in syria and to rebuild syria on its own. so the whole world will be needed, and this is the chance a reconciliation process which goes back and as i said the umbrella of the united nations but all of us reunite with one goal, to stabilize and rebuild that region. allow me a last point. it's impressive, it's very ambitious. and i cross all figures that you are successful. if i look at the panel here, and

if i look into the room, if we really take it serious with establishing a modern peaceful society, yes, we need the youth as you said. we need education of young people, and they need to have a perspective. but we need women, too. i would want to put an emphasis on that topic. include the women in the process, include the women and the mothers in the process of reconciliation and reconstruction. because this is the only way to build up a modern, inclusive, free and open-minded society. >> very good. bahrain, small island right on the fault line. you have iran over one horizon, saudi arabia over another, iraq to the north. and you actually host the

american fleet in the base. give me your assessment of american foreign-policy right now in the gulf. do we have it right? could we use a a little advicen one side or another? >> we really look at american foreign-policy and our partnership with america -- [inaudible] >> we have been hacked. [laughing] >> not me. it wasn't me. it's the translation is on, sorry. go ahead. >> it's the translation is on. >> yes. >> it's not me. sorry. >> gives you time to think. >> exactly. [laughing] >> stalling tactic. >> what was the question again? [laughing] go ahead. america's presence, america's partnership with our region has

been there for decades. those decades also saw some issues. 1973 there was a major issue of the 1973 war between egypt, syria and israel. at that time the gulf countries and especially bahrain having the presence there at the same time with the aerobics between america and israel was something of a stark difference. that did not derail that commitment because we know that commitment is there for the stability of the region, that is the cornerstone of this partnership. this will continue. so whether america has some views now about some matters, but american is an establishment. we know a lot of people who are partners to a lot of different things in our region. this will continue, and usually whatever situation happens in that country, america is used to

turning on a dime, normally. when you said the fault line, yes, that is a fault line with extremism, which is the islamic republic. and there's a a fault line thas forming possibly of a new cold war, that i i can reach by a speedboat from bahrain. this is something that is weak see as a challenge but we're not seeing it as a threat because we know our commitment with our allies, the united states. it's not on the fifth fleet in bahrain, a whole international group of countries having their fleets covering the gulf and the arabian sea and the gulf of aden fighting against pirates and all sorts. but one have to talk about a main challenge of the other side, which is the islamic republic, i'm hesitant to use the word iran, i tell you the truth. because there is an iran we know

very well. we are used to. even in difficult times in the past when they used to claim bahrain and then they change the might and accepted that bahrain is an independent country, although we had in the past issues and continue to have it with occupation of the united arab emirates islands, but we always sought legal solution for that and we continue to do so until today. but there's the mistrust that came with the islamic republic. there's that when we know, i ran the people, the cultural links we have, iran the culture, the history and depth of the civilization. there is the situation now since 1979 that we are going through with is something that every now and then the people of iran will have their own views towards it. so we need that to be addressed. iran needs to really change its behavior. we're not there to destroy iran. we are not there to interfere with iran but they need to

really change their behavior and be part of this whole international coalition to protect the region with the united states of america. they should not look at the base or the presence of the fifth fleet in bahrain and the international fleets as a threat to the country. they should work toward being a partner of that group. then, and when this stop exporting the revolution, the iranian revolution, they should respect their own revolution and not think of packages it and sing it all over the world purchases something that is really not respectful to that revolution. in we will be able to be on firmer ground to come and talk to the iran onto to the islamic republic itself we don't mind but when you do talk direct within. america's partnership with us isn't there, it's vital and it shall continue. >> since we don't have represented of a rant on the panel i will play that role.

so from iran's point if you're a look around, american troops in iraq, american ships in bahrain, i've got american planes in qatar and in uae. i got american troops in afghanistan. i i feel like i am surrounded, number one. and i had to effectively sees dominant control of four arab capitals because there was chaos. i'm just stabilizing the region. so what is your reaction to that? is iran and russia, we have not brought russia in, are the two of them forces of equilibrium or disequilibrium? do they have .? >> again, tom, i think very significant what we saw internally in iran following this, this is really significant and i think this is going to

play into the coming years. >> tell us why. >> number one, through the economy is fueled, it stacked and clearly people really want emphasis on creating opportunity and jobs. the whole idea of not syria but iran is what you should concentrate on. is it clear message, not from us, across the gulf? this is from your own population. don't spend 5 billion, $6 billion in syria. don't spend $1 trillion on hezbollah hezbollah. concentrate on creating opportunity. i heard one iranian lady in many of the clips that came out, and she said we want to be as fortune as arab women. we are not looking very forward to being fortunate as of the women in more stable places.

they see what's going on. i think the third thing also is everybody thought that following the earlier green movement that this would actually how the iranian people here this has occurred in all emphasis it will recur. so from the perspective that we see, this is the time for iran really to analyze again what it is doing, for its own stabilities safety i think it's a form for iran to understand that the sort of disturbances that were countrywide and giving is now admit are all internal, it is really an opportunity for them to understand that have to be a normal country. that's the first thing is to get iran to be a normal country. the second thing is if iran is a normal country, the normal thing to do is to have dialogue.

because we can't be neighbors not talk to each other. you can't have dialogue with iran not being in a normal state, a normal state the respect sovereignty and respect independence of other states, choices made by other states, and to try and go with this sort of a transnational sectarianism. i am hoping, i am hoping that i think we will need to look in the next few months that the anger that was seen on iranian streets is not in vain, that this is really an opportunity for iran to sort of recalibrate, reemphasize, prioritize and understand that an aggressive foreign-policy in error the space doesn't only undermine stability but, in arab lands, but it actually undermines

stability everywhere. >> let's opened up to the floor. the only rule is no speeches, and respectful questions. go right ahead and let us know who you are and direct your question specifically to someone. i'll repeat it. [inaudible] >> you make in your initial remarks how saudi arabia is the rising leader and that you are filling that vacuum, and the country surround you, , to wait being one of them, we will follow you as a leader. my question to you is, what's the kingdoms strategy for dealing with the islamic republic, for dealing with the proxy war in yemen, for dealing with the takeover of the cities

that tom mentioned, beirut and others in iraq in syria? just continue to wait for a cold war revolution, or what's the kingdom going to do? >> i think i need to clarify. i said we're not leaving. people ask us. they said you need to take up and take more responsibility for your region because we can't afford to, and your influence and your wealth and you should be able to do it. so when we step up in order to take measures into our own hands, that very same people who encourage others to do this are now saying why are you being reckless? we are not being reckless. we have in iran the whole meaning revolution that change act incident for the worst. our societies were developing. they were opening up. the revolution launched a sectarian wave in the middle east that provoked a sunni reaction and creative extremists among the sunnis in reaction to the islamic republic and the

revolution. then paul manes revolution -- call manes revolution, , it is enshrined in the constitution. the iranian states, the revolution doesn't recognize citizenship. they believe every shiite blocs are meant that this is not acceptable. they set out to export this revolution on the one hand, and to try to restore the persian empire on the other hand. this is what led them to interfere in the affairs of arab countries. they have no problem setting up terrorist groups like hezbollah, others, and the houthis in human later. they have no problem attacking embassies and assessing diplomats. i have no problem committing terrorist acts in europe, and south america all over the place. and so from our perspective the iranians had to do so within a nationstate which would be a rational actor that you can do

with with respect to international laws and respects to international norms of behavior or if it's revolution that doesn't reckon it's any of the spirit i don't think iranians know what they are. so what do we do? we sat for 35 years that we try to reach out to iran. we tried to engage iran to no avail. all we got was death and destruction in return. our diplomats assassins, our embassies blown up, terrorist cells planted in the country, terrorist attacks committed in a country, recruiting our citizens to cause damage inside and outside saudi arabia. we have to respond. when you try to weaken hezbollah in lebanon in order to strengthen the state, that's a positive. iran is in building hezbollah for 30 years. somebody has to come and hold back to influence a lebanon can become a normal country. we always believed it lebanon didn't exist we would have. >> translator: because you're 16 different religious and ethnic groups living side-by-side in lebanon and abilities in an arab country. it has to be the model because

it lebanon falls apart and minorities in the world do not feel safe, they leave. the rich culture that his excellency spoke about in the middle east, we will lose some have to preserve lebanon. what do we do in iraq? we are engaging in a wreck because iraq is an arab country and should be part of the arab world and part of the goal. in yemen we responded to a coup that the houthis staged, that destroyed humans path towards normalization. and we're preventing the takeover by yemen, the radical iranian hezbollah affiliated to ourselves. we do not what has been in yemen. the houthis or 50,000 people. they cannot dominate the country of 20 million. we are working with allies in order to push back. we are working with allies in the gulf in order to beef up our defenses. and we are working within the

islamic world in order to isolate iran working with african countries in order to isolate iran. we will continue to so until iran changes its policies. >> the young lady back there. [inaudible] >> my question is, you said the crowned prince once a normal saudi arabia. so my question is do you see in the very close future the end of the guardianship system for women in saudi arabia? >> i think if you look at the issue of women in saudi arabia, in 1960 we had no schools for women. today 55% of college students are women. in 1960 there were no perfections open to women. today some of her most prominent businessperson, doctors, engineers are women. women can vote.

20% of the council, legislative body our ladies. their opening of the ban on system, has been lifted and women would be able to drive in june of this year. the restrictions on entertainment and recreation have been lifted towards a more open society. also this issue is something our society would be dealing with. a country cannot move forward if we only avail ourselves 50% of our population. we have to include everybody. this is the objective also of our 2030 vision. we want to increase manyfold the participation rate of women in the workforce, even though 55% 5% of college students are women and more than 6% are graduate students, their participation rate in the workforce is much lower than male participation rate. >> is a something work i did change that we believe we are opening up the public space, allowing women to drive, that this will make it easier and

will encourage more women to join the workplace. >> over here. >> i'm a saudi senior citizen. [laughing] when he appointed the prince to be in charge of vision 2030, the prince collected a group of young saudi to develop a performance for the government. i have just come from the inauguration of this issue, number 62 in the promenade. please go and see. measures all efforts of the saudi government, and when they found they could do that they decided to include the rest of the world in that program. they are offering it to the rest of the world. if they get all the indices from the united nations, from the north bay, , from the imf, et cetera and put them in this

program, which is readily available and at the touch of a finger you can find out exactly what governments stand on issues like justice, like human rights, like labor, et cetera, et cetera, that is what another aspect you asked the minister about the prince that is very clearly in my view that only responding to the age group that he is representing, but also to my age group. thank you very much. >> we will take that as a commentor. young lady in the first row. [inaudible] >> i have a question for the ministers. when donald trump went to riyadh, saudi arabia and also to uae and announced a lot of investments into the u.s. economy, and i'm wondering what

are you expecting from the u.s. in return? deputy prime minister, you have turkish troops and qatar rather as you know, this whole commerce people call it, they qatar crisis going on. i'm wondering how far would turkey go in order, in this whole crisis, what is turkey's role in qatar and how long are you planning to stay there? minister, also as a german citizen, we have been hearing so many different varieties of what he misses is is that you all ae on isis are daesh being an extremist group that some of the panelists to think that also iran is spreading extremism. germany or the european union was at the forefront from the iran nuclear deal. i'm wondering are you addressing those worries to your partners? how can you address them given that recently he dismantled a couple of iranian agents inside

germany? >> let me know that down because i give you a break. if you don't mind. talk about turkish troops and qatar and you talk about your view of iran. the panel seems to be, three-fifths of the, agree agree has been a source of instability. is that germany to you as well? >> first of all, we support kuwait mediation efforts and addressing the current dispute in qatar and its neighbors. as i said, clearly dialogue is the best way and that's really key to addressing the difference of opinion even within the family sometimes you disagree. i think gcc countries are a family, and i'm absolutely convinced that they would address the current dispute. and in that sense we are looking forward to resolution.

regarding turkish troops in qatar, they are on a scale, was based on invitation from qatar. it's not against any other country in the region. they cannot be imagined. we played a very constructive role within nato in the past and, of course, we continue to remain so. we have troops in afghanistan combating extremism there. we did, we went there to help the united states. we are in somali, humanitarian assistance. we were in lebanon, too, again, as a part of peacekeeping. we were in kosovo. so turkey in many parts of the world. it is one of the largest players within nato and one of the largest in the world so we are there. mostly for peacekeeping -- >> against two?

>> no, no, no. speaking in general terms. but as far as qatar is in a limited scale. >> you will close of this force because we told the time is up. is iran -- >> many words about every 30 question and we see many problems with iran without question. but we think the iran deal encapsulates the core problem, and, therefore, we think we should stick to the deal as long as iran sticks to the deal, too. this has to be control ongoing. this is not excused that apart from his iran deal there are many other problems we have to discuss with iran without any question. we see with a lot of worries the growing influence of iran, be in iraq or syria, via hezbollah in that area, so this is one more good argument to be present in

the region, to have our influence, speaking of european now, european void being heard in the region and european helping hand, helping to rebuild society and reconstruction after this horrible fight against daesh with all the destruction we have seen and the human catastrophes we have seen there. so yes, we see the problem with iran, but we stick to the iran deal because we this is a better way to go. it's always better to be in a constant dialogue, as hard as it might be, then to be not talking terms anymore. >> please give our panel appreciation. [applause] >> , it up later supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg talk with the editor-in-chief of forward magazine about the intersection between law, media and jewish life. live coverage at 7 p.m. eastern.

president trump is coming back to washington from the republican policy retreat in west virginia picky will be delivering remarks to the republican national committee meeting at the trump hotel in washington. live coverage at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> sunday night on "after words," former speechwriter for president george w. bush and atlantic columnist david frum with his book "trumpocracy" ." he's interviewed by "washington post" nonfiction book critic. >> it comes come from the sames democracy and autocracy is a book about the study of power. that's what the suffix means. this is the study of donald trump's power, how did he get it, how does he began and how does he get away with it. so trumpocracy is of the system of enabling pickets the system in the white house and the system between trump and congress, the schism between trump and the media that enable

them and create an audit pickets the system that involves the republican donor in it, the traditional element of the republican party and above all between him and that core group of his voters within the republican party who enabled him to win the republican nomination and then go on to the presidency. >> watch "after words" sunday night at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span2's booktv. >> last month former secretary of state henry kissinger and george scholz appear before the senate armed services committee to talk about the trump administrations national security strategy and global threat including north korea, russia, iran and china and nuclear liberation. former deputy secretary of state richard armitage joined. [inaudible conversations]