ISTANBUL — On May 30 in Taksim, I was trying to explain to Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki what the protesters were doing in the park below his hotel room. We could see some of them from the balcony. After I told him that they were opposing a government decision to turn that very park into a shopping mall, themed as a long-gone Ottoman military barracks, Marzouki shook his head in disapproval. Of whom did he disapprove, however? The government or the protesters? Marzouki gave no clue, refusing to speak on the issue.

After we said goodbye, I walked to the park, Gezi Park, to check if some tents that belonged to a handful of "occupiers" had really been torched by the authorities earlier that morning, as media reports had suggested. As I verified the reports with my own eyes, my phone rang. An aide to Marzouki kindly stated that they would like to retract an answer that the president had given me half an hour earlier, during our interview at the hotel.

My question was related to the restrictions that the Turkish government had just put on alcohol sales. There was a similar debate in Tunisia, also a tourist destination on the Mediterranean Sea. Although Marzouki's answer was indeed newsworthy, I could not include it in my newspaper, as to do so would have been unprofessionalism and exhibit a lack of goodwill after such a request. We, however, published other interesting remarks by him, including the one in which he said, "Dictatorship is possible both through parliamentarian and presidential systems."

Emphasizing the commonalities of Turkey and Tunisia, Marzouki did not hide that his citizens looked to Ankara as a role model. "I think that we have a lot of things to learn from Turkey, which is an economic success story," he said.