Erdogan’s Balkan tour

Last week Turkish President Erdogan set out on a tour of the Balkans, visiting Albania and Serbia. The tour kicked off in Albania, with Erdogan gifting a number of drones and inaugurating the largest mosque in the Balkans – which was funded by Turkey. The second leg took him to Serbia, where Turkey made a diplomatic comeback in 2017.

Thanos Davelis caught up with expert Dimitar Bechev last week while Erdogan was wrapping up his visit to Belgrade. We looked into Erdogan’s Balkan tour, and broke down Turkey’s broader agenda in the region. Bechev is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, where he focuses on EU enlargement, the Western Balkans, and Eastern Europe, and he is the author of the bookTurkey under Erdogan.