Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travels to Paris on Friday for talks with France’s Emmanuel Macron aimed at improving relations with Europe, after a war of words in 2017. The visit to France will be Erdogan’s first since the botched July 2015 putsch and one of only a handful to Europe since the attempted army takeover. The Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said she was “concerned” about the state of “human rights and local democracy in Turkey”. Speaking to LCI, Erdogan — who is trying to mediate in Syria alongside Russia and Iran — reiterated his position that President Bashar al-Assad should stand down. Hosting Erdogan forces Macron, who has attempted to boost France’s standing on the European and world stages, to again walk a diplomatic tightrope.

Source: The Guardian January 05, 2018 08:26 UTC