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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visits Saudi Arabia
Photo: MURAT CETINMUHURDAR/PPO/via REUTERS
This trip is a small diplomatic miracle: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is currently visiting Saudi Arabia.
The visit demonstrates the common will to start a new era of cooperation as two fraternal states, Erdoğan said on Thursday at the airport before his departure for the Wahhabi kingdom.
According to Saudi government circles, Erdoğan is to meet King Salman and also the crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.
According to the Turkish broadcaster TRT, the Turkish President then also wants to travel to the city of Mecca, which is holy to Muslims.
It is Erdoğan's first visit to the country since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which severely deteriorated already strained relations.
The journalist and government critic was killed in October 2018 in his country's consulate in Istanbul.
US secret services see the crown prince as the mastermind.
The royal family rejects this.
Turkey initially negotiated the murder in its own country, but recently handed over the investigation to Saudi Arabia, to the outrage of many.
Observers see primarily economic interests behind the rapprochement driven by Erdoğan.
The Turkish national currency, the lira, is losing value, inflation is rising and with it the dissatisfaction of the population - Erdoğan's poll numbers are falling.
Although relations with Europe and the USA have improved again as a result of the war in Ukraine, they are still tense.
Erdoğan is looking for new partners and is not only turning to Saudi Arabia.
Recently there has also been a rapprochement with Armenia, the Emirates and Israel.
In the rich oil state, Erdogan can now hope for commitments for fresh investments.
He will also be keen to end an unofficial boycott of Turkish goods that Saudi entrepreneurs and traders called for in 2020.
The result was a slump in the export of Turkish goods.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, hopes to shelve the Khashoggi case entirely.
The murder brought a lot of criticism to the country and severely damaged the crown prince's image.
Pro-government Turkish media discredited “MBS” and even gave him the nickname “Abu Minshar” for the murder – which roughly translates to “master of the saw” in German.
dop/dpa