Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who changed his position on Syria after talks last week with President Barack Obama at the White House and is now talking about supporting a political solution to the crisis — has also apparently fine-tuned his stance on his planned, controversial visit to Gaza, which he now says will take place in June.

Secretary of State John Kerry had angered Ankara in April by suggesting during a visit to Istanbul that Erdogan delay his visit so it would not distract attention from efforts to revive the Middle East peace process. Defiant members of the Erdogan government responded angrily, suggesting it was not up to Kerry to decide when the visit should take place and insisting that it would proceed as scheduled, at the end of May.

Erdogan’s dilemma, however, was that opposition to the visit was not limited to the United States but also included the Palestinian Authority (PA), led by President Mahmoud Abbas, which has been arguing that a Gaza visit would be divisive for the Palestinians given the efforts under way for reconciliation between Hamas and the Fatah-dominated PA.

Judging from remarks by Obama and Erdogan on May 16 during their joint press conference at the White House following nearly four hours of talks, this issue had been a key item on their agenda.