ANKARA, June 22 ― Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler will today take another step towards breaking his international isolation by paying his first visit to Turkey since the murder in 2018 of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate.
Turks' living standards are imploding one year before a general election that poses one of the biggest challenges of Erdogan's mercurial two-decade rule. “I think this is probably one of the most significant visits to Ankara by a foreign leader in almost a decade,” said the Washington Institute's Turkey specialist Soner Cagaptay.
“He gets off the plane and hugs the killers,” fumed Turkey's main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu ― Erdogan's likely chief rival in the presidential race. Analysts believe the resulting drop in Erdogan's public approval and the depletion of state reserves means the Turkish leader can ill afford to maintain his hostile stance toward the petrodollar-filled Gulf states.
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