President Erdoğan will be paying a visit to President Trump in the U.S on November 13. After rising diplomatic tensions between two countries during Operation Peace Spring, this visit will be important in determining the future of Turkish-American relations. This face-to-face meeting will be a chance to solve problems that emerged between the two countries in recent years.

President Erdogan has stated that the top item on the agenda with President Trump will be the fight against the FETO terror group. The extradition of Fetullah Gulen, the FETO leader, to Turkey has been a long standing source of tension between Turkey and the US, and prioritizing this issue indicates a clear intention to make progress towards developing a more collaborative relationship to address security threats.

The Syrian crisis and Operation Peace Spring will also be at the top of the agenda. During Turkey’s military operation in Syria, Turkish-US relations deteriorated due to a conflict of interests and misunderstandings between the two countries on the Syrian issue. Obviously, the biggest issue of conflict is the YPG’s presence in Northern Syria. While Turkey sees it as a threat to its national security, the US sees them as useful to prevent the rise of Daesh in the region. Tensions between the two nations escalated and de-escalated several times during the operation and as a result, this visit will be important to repair relations between Turkey and the US.

President Erdoğan almost certainly be bringing the Turkish-American agreement on the safe zone to the table. President Erdoğan recently said “We know that there are still terrorists in the planned safe zone. These areas have not been cleared of terrorists yet”. Since the agreement requires the withdrawal of YPG members 30 kilometers away from Turkey’s border, President Erdoğan will most likely discuss why the agreement has not been fulfilled yet.

When it comes to the American side, it appears that while President Trump sees the visit as a chance to discuss the Syrian border, terrorism and the YPG,  the American side is much more pessimistic about the visit, and it is likely that US officials will continue to take a firm stand on the YPG’s presence outside of the safe zone. It has also been said that while the two leaders may solve the existing problems, they also have to convince the Washington bureaucracy which is still angry about the agreement and Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria.

The future of 3.6 million refugees living in Turkey. As was previously stated by Turkey, one of the main aims of the establishment of a safe zone is the resettlement of approximately 1.5-2 million Syrian refugees within the safe zone. In his UN speech, President Erdoğan underlined that Turkey could not maintain hosting 3.6 million refugees and it was urgent to establish the safe zone and resettle refugees in that area.

Another prominent issue for the Erdoğan-Trump meeting will be the sanctions against Turkey and the resolution passed by the House of Representatives to commemorate “the Armenian Genocide”. It is a well-known fact that both decisions were taken by the US to force Turkey to halt Operation Peace Spring. President Erdoğan stated that he discussed the decision of the House of Representatives with President Trump on the phone and that Trump decided to examine this issue.

Other issues such as the Halkbank case, the future of the YPG in Syria will all be handled during the visit. Some of these issues have been in negotiation with the US for a long time and the outcome of this visit on these issues will be of interest.

It seems that even if the two leaders are eager to solve the existing problems between two countries, there is the obstacle of a resistant Washington bureaucracy. The ongoing impeachment investigation against Trump and the media’s aggressive stance against Turkey has forced him to take a confrontational stance against Turkey. Nevertheless, good relations between the two leaders helped in finding solutions for deep-rooted problems in the past, and ongoing intractable issues may be solved at the table once again.

It’s been 22 years since the last coup in Turkey. We saw other coup attempts from the e-memorandum of 27 April, 2007, to the bloodiest coup attempt of 15 July, 2016. But these two failed to topple down the democratically elected government. Unlike the later two cases, the military’s intervention on 28 February, 1997, toppled down the government, banned the biggest party (Welfare Party) in parliament, and arrested many for not adhering to the republican laws (!) This last item of enforcing republican laws deserves more attention since it is a living memory in contemporary Turkish society and one major cleavage of political polarization. The coup plotters did not only push Prime Minister Erbakan to resign, but also took severe measures to affect society as a whole. The coup was not just about re-shaping the political spectrum by forcing political parties with military dictates. It was also a top-down social engineering process. A process that was destined to fail.

During and in the aftermath of the coup, the companionship of the Turkish military and judiciary carried out severe measures targeting the life styles of ordinary pious people on the street. Girls in headscarves were prevented from receiving education, as they could not enter public or private universities. One such fresh memory is the video footage of Behriye Kardeniz. She was a university student wearing a headscarf studying at the Nursery School of Sivas Cumhuriyet University. She happened to graduate in the heydays of the February 28 process. She did not simply graduate, but was also the top student of her entire program. The video footage takes place during her graduation ceremony where she was prevented from speaking while some people were shutting her mouth with their hands and pulling her headscarf.

Such encounters have tones of documented evidence, where women in headscarves went through physical and psychological intervention not only from the police or other security personnel, but also from their professors and peers. The mainstream media whitewashed such atrocities, the leading Turkish industrialists made supportive speeches for the process, and even some elected politicians took side with the military’s policies. While the policies of the coup plotters were still in charge, PM Ecevit had made a very harsh speech against the only female deputy in parliament with a headscarf. He had said that “Here [the Parliament] is not a place to challenge the state. Please bring this lady into line.” Following the speech Kavakci was forced to leave parliament and she was expelled from parliament and her Turkish citizenship was revoked.

It is this legacy that keeps the conservative and pious people of Turkey united behind the current President Erdogan to a great extent. Erdogan, himself was jailed in the process and banned from active political activities. Thousands of Turkish women had to drop out of school, thousands of students –both male and female- from Islamic education schools were denied entry to universities, and so on. These students still vote today and their memories are still fresh. Some people think that it has been 22 years since the coup and it is time to forget. I disagree. I believe the February 28 process showed and enforced the major line of division in Turkish politics and society.

The old establishment of Turkey and their supporters did not want the conservative people of Anatolia to rise in the social, economic, and political life. The latent critiques of AK Party still seems to be about its role in the vertical mobilization of Turkey’s conservative millions. They could study in higher education and become judges, parliamentary members, and so on. This has changed Turkey’s traditional social structure in which the conservative millions of Anatolia had one role to play, serve the civilized(!) and modern republican spirited people (or White Turks in short) of Turkey.

Erdogan’s AK Party has broken this power structure. But even today, women in headscarf are denied to enter such white Turkish circles. I can count multiple private universities in which you cannot see a single professor, instructor or secretary in headscarf. The same observation is valid for many other private companies, which explicitly exclude such conservative people from their staff. And this tells me that these very same circles who no longer control the state apparatus but continue to exclude pious people from their private enterprises must be missing the February 28 coup. The millions voting for Erdogan’s AK Party seem to be aware of this living polarization. Their memories of February 28 do not die because the spirit of February 28 coup plotters is still alive.

World War I had begun following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, but the geopolitical reason behind the war traces back to the power competition among the European states in the late 19th-century. Even though Ferdinand’s assassination was a crystallization of the already-broken strategic balance within European politics, it unearthed the influence of geopolitics on international politics: The intensified geopolitical antagonism in the Balkans that took place back in the day constitutes a great example in that regard.

One hundred years later, this time in the Middle East, another example reveals the mentality behind geopolitics. The disappearance of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, at the hands of Trump’s close ally, in the Saudi consulate general in Istanbul, displays the very nature of the violent geopolitics of the contemporary Middle East. The incident does not only expose the strategic rationality behind the brutal operation led by the MbS coalition but also underlines the competitive nature of regional geopolitics.

Competing narratives on the murder of Khashoggi

There have been two broad categories of competing narratives since Khashoggi’s first disappearance in the Saudi consulate. The first one revolves around the idea of fundamental human rights and freedom, for which killing a dissident journalist at the hand of a rogue apparatus of the Saudi regime constitutes the case. Contrary to the moral logic, the second narrative points out the reality of the geopolitics of the Middle East in general, and the geopolitics of Saudi Arabia in particular.

The latter is gradually becoming the main narrative and shaping our perception of the murder of Khashoggi. These two narratives enable us to understand the already-worsening political landscape in the Middle East. It is crucial to keep in mind that the region has a unique anarchical trajectory, and the ongoing legitimacy crisis of the existing international order shapes the very future of this region via geopolitics. Also, needless to say, the U.S. is an active influencer of the geopolitics in the Middle East.

The U.S. narrative regarding the disappearance of Khashoggi depicts the Trump administration’s complicated relationship with the Middle East. It is widely accepted that the U.S. is a liberal democracy, in which the rule of law, the freedom of speech and free market economy are at the center. This perception might be partly true within the borders of the U.S., but it does not play into reality abroad. The U.S. had never been a real proponent of ideal liberal democracy in shaping its foreign policy priorities abroad, especially in the Middle East. More importantly, the existing U.S. strategy in the Middle East constitutes the most troubling strategic obstacle preventing the achievement of a stable order in the region.

In other words, the U.S. itself is undermining the potential of establishing a stable region in the Middle East. The intention here is not to argue that without the U.S., the Middle East region would overcome its issues overnight. The U.S.’s Middle East grand strategy is only achievable through rogue actors that have no perception of universal values. From the PKK to Saudi Arabia and from Israel to the UAE and Egypt, the U.S. can only deliver its strategic objectives through rouge entities or regimes, who are also incapable of delivering their own grand strategies without the support of the U.S. in the region. It is no secret that, in every single incident, the Trump administration stands by the rogue regime or entity at stake.

The Khashoggi murder is no exception for the U.S.

Regarding the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, however, the U.S. embraced two different narratives simultaneously. The mainstream media, particularly the Washington Post, where Jamal Khashoggi contributed as a columnist, disseminated the intelligence information shared by anonymous Turkish intelligence sources and pushed the Trump administration to take some responsibility to clarify whether his most popular ally, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, also known as MbS, has any responsibility behind the disappearance of Khashoggi.

While the media and some of high profile Republicans and Democrats frame the Khashoggi case within the context of American universal values, the Trump administration determined its strategy in line with its arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the containment strategy of Iran, the fragile balance of power in the Gulf region, and the U.S.-Israel master plan on Palestine. However, Turkey’s cautious approach gradually pushed Saudi Arabia to accept its responsibility, and the Trump administration had to change its ways of framing the issue.

Here, the problem for the Trump administration is not the action of the Crown Prince against a dissident journalist, but it is the intelligence information shared by Turkey.

At this stage, if Trump decides to retreat MbS because of his brutality, which is unlikely to happen, it will not be a decision of American liberal principles, but a decision motivated by the increasing unpredictability of MbS’s actions in the Middle East.

Turkey and the Khashoggi murder

When it comes to Turkey, besides the moral aspect of the Khashoggi murder, the mentality of geopolitics is also a determining factor not only in understanding the nature of Khashoggi’s death but also in determining Ankara’s foreign policy agenda. From the geopolitical angle, Turkey did not initially want to disrupt its relationship with the Saudi state but desired to influence Saudi’s anti-Turkey position in the region. During the first stage of the disappearance of Khashoggi, Ankara decided to provide details about Khashoggi’s killing at the Saudi consulate to shape the perception of international media to test the waters. This stage was crucial for Ankara to locate the Khashoggi murder as an international issue rather than formulating it as a Turkish-Saudi problem.

More importantly, Ankara pushed the Trump administration to take a leading role in addressing the issue to confront Saudi Arabia. The central rationality behind Ankara’s behavior was to create an international moral awareness to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and push the Saudi authorities to accept the crime that they committed. It was clear for Turkey that Saudi Arabia would not accept its responsibility if Turkey had not gradually shared the intelligence information with the international media.

In the second stage, Ankara started to intensify its intelligence sharing to ultimately show that Saudi Arabia had the responsibility in organizing every single stage of the Khashoggi operation. Following the 17 days of intelligence sharing by Turkey, Saudi Arabia had to confirm that something went wrong during the interrogation of Khashoggi in the consulate. During this stage, Saudi Arabia quickly became an international flashlight as international actors began to change their attitudes against MbS.

In the third stage, President Erdogan himself began to lead the process by sharing his perception with the international audience. On Tuesday, President Erdogan gave a very detailed timeline explaining that the Saudi team planned the brutal killing of Khashoggi. In his speech, Erdogan did not directly accuse the Saudi leadership but highlighted that a Saudi probe, which has resulted in the arrest of 18 people so far, has not yet reached the high-level representatives in the Kingdom’s inner circle.

It is clear that Ankara has a moral duty to clarify what happened in the consulate as well as various geopolitical concerns. Within this context, underlying the role of MbS in Saudi politics carries a critical role in explaining the geopolitical dimension of Khashoggi’s murder. For Turkey, there is profound geopolitical disagreement between Ankara and Riyadh regarding regional affairs.

While Saudi Arabia’s support of the U.S. strategy towards the PYD/YPG in Syria is an essential one for Turkey, MbS’s role in the Palestinian case demonstrates another issue, in which Saudis seem to be an integral part of a long-term U.S.-Israel strategy to redesign the region. Qatar is also a critical disagreement point in Turkish-Saudi relations. From Libya to Yemen, Turkey and Saudi Arabia compete with each other.

President Erdogan intentionally highlighted in his speech the difference between the King of Saudi, Selman and politically responsible name behind the murder by saying that the killing was premeditated. At this stage, Turkey is trying to carry out its position one step forward to weaken the legitimacy of MbS internationally and to deter Saudi Arabia’s anti-Turkish geopolitical ambitions in the Middle East. The intelligence knowledge that Turkey has can also shift the U.S. position against MbS.

Khashoggi’s murder revealed the complex nature of geopolitics in the region, but how it is going to influence the future of the region remains a big question mark.

On Thursday, Turkey’s President Erdogan arrived in Germany for a three-day lasting official state visit. As was planned, he met with both Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Merkel in Berlin. On the third day, Erdogan concluded his visit by opening one of Europe’s largest mosques in the German city of Cologne.

Several analysts and commentators addressed and stressed the meaning of this visit and its importance with regard to bilateral relations between Turkey and Germany. Of course, there are several aspects that might be analyzed in more depth in the upcoming days. However, the main question, which rose subsequent to the visit, is about the realist expectations right after a period of serious challenges that both countries have faced in recent years.

It has to be underscored that all in all the visit is with no doubt a positive and official step in order to, at least, try to overcome the disputes between the two countries. Besides various topics, it’s not that wrong to state that during the bilateral meetings and discussions, the focus was set on important issues such as the refugee problem, economic relations, and the security priorities of both countries. While there still remains disagreements in regards to the activities of certain groups in Germany, which are elaborated as a national security concern by Turkey, positive steps taken to strengthen economic relations and improvements in the dialogue to fix the political discourse in general seem promising.

From a broader perspective, Germany and the EU still have to face the refugee problem, while Turkey is also considering a burden sharing with potential future escalations in Syria; above all, in a potential future case of a worst-case scenario regarding the Idlib issue.

Apart from the fact that many German media outlets continue to problematize the -cautious- rapprochement of both countries from a single perspective, it’s an apparent success that nevertheless both Turkey and Germany were able to launch a new and fresh page.

With this, one has to keep in mind that Germany’s perception of Turkey is mostly shaped by three major circles. As Professor Kemal Inat recently emphasized, the official visit once again entailed the existence of 1) a circle consisting of rational German politicians and business people, 2) an aggressive anti-Turkey lobby and, finally, 3) a so-called group, which still perceives Turkey as a country to impose Germany’s own interests.

Despite the continuing efforts of the anti-Turkey lobby to prevent these steps, which includes utilizing certain German media outlets and broadcasting preferences, and through the support of groups such as the PKK-friendly Left Party, it seems that nowadays the first circle in discussion has gained fragile power. Steps taken by the first group, which have an ambition to continue dialogue, can be observed as positive. However, given the fragile conditions, one has to be prepared for the likely absurd and non-realistic engagements from the second and third groups, and even from parts of the first group due to some future elections in German federal states, such as in Bavaria on October 14.

Nevertheless, Turkey is aware of these conditions and President Erdogan simply does not accept the ambivalent behavior of some of Germany’s leading figures – including President Steinmeier – who attempted to criticize the Turkish President even during his speech at the official state dinner banquet. Dis-regarding these comments, President Erdogan once again stressed Turkey’s ongoing dissatisfactions by stating, “Unfortunately, hundreds and thousands of terrorists (such as FETO members) are walking freely in Germany. And we’re not going to talk about them? I didn’t want to bring this up tonight. But when the president (Steinmeier) mentioned these issues, I had to.”

Thus, while on the one hand it can be stated that a new era is launched with Germany, on the other, the negative ambitions of several circles in Germany in regards to Turkey will continue. Leading personalities of the two countries have to take these conditions into account, and German authorities ought to be aware of this trap that they may well easily fall in to. The focus on certain issues concerning the interest of both countries will most likely deepen the dialogue between the two and strengthen bilateral relations.