Migration issues expert Professor Murat Erdoğan once told me that many migrant communities resent their host countries.
The number of Turkish tourists that have visited Greece this year is around 800,000 up until now. This number is expected to reach one million by the end of the year, as many Turkish tourists are expected to go to Greece to welcome the New Year, which will be on a weekend.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is furious about U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
“Coming from Europe I hear only pessimistic messages about Turkey. Tell me something positive,” said Richard Howitt, a man familiar with Turkish affairs, having served as an elected member of the European Parliament for over 20 years.
Nine out of 10 Turks say they don’t trust their interlocutor.
“I don’t understand why a man would take his small children with him to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL],” I said to a Turkish official familiar with the issue.
This is not the first time that Turkey has been taken by surprise by global actors in the Syrian theater.
Turkey lives in a troubled neighborhood and the Western world has often had problematic relations with its neighbors.
When Turkey denied the U.S. military permission to use Turkish soil on its way to invade Iraq in 2003, I thought it was a decision that ran counter to Turkey’s national interests.
