Update: The hotel location of the Bilderberg Group meeting listed in the article from Today's Zaman appears to be incorrect. According to AFP's Jim Tucker who has tracked Bilderberg for many years now, the meeting will be held at the Ritz Carlton in Istanbul. The hotel location information listed in this article could have very well been intentional misinformation from the Bilderbergers.

The Bilderberg Group, which brings together people of influence from around the world, will begin its 2007 meeting in Turkey today.

Bilderberg is an annual conference of the global elite, the location of which changes every year. Power brokers from industry, oil companies, politics, banking, business, academia, royalty and the media get together to privately discuss the course of the world with no outside press coverage whatsoever. The secrecy of the group has attracted criticism and given rise to much conspiracy theory about possible covert plans of the global elite to rule the world. Many treat the meeting as a significant event during which participants also determine the following year’s agenda.

However, the group claims it does not set policy.

The elite group will be meeting today at the Klassis Hotel in the town of Silivri, 40 miles from İstanbul.

Sources say the meeting, which will be held from May 31 to June 3, will mainly focus on issues such as a probable operation against Iran, energy policies and Turkey’s EU membership process. During last year`s meeting, Turkey-EU relations were discussed quite intensely by the participants.

Two Bilderberg conferences were previously held in Turkey, the first in 1959 in Istanbul and the other in 1975 in Çesme, near the Aegean city of Izmir.

Economy Minister Ali Babacan, KOÇ Holding CEO Mustafa Koç and Yeni Şafak columnist Fehmi Koru are some of the Turks expected to attend the conference, while former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and UN Development Programme (UNDP) chief Kemal Derviş are some of the international personalities expected to attend this year`s meeting.