On Nov. 10 Turkey will observe the 80th anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic. Yet on that same date his latest successor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be paying a visit to Paris for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. A century ago, Ataturk — an Ottoman Empire war hero and respected general — was preoccupied with a retreat from a region he commanded in northern Syria. Now the longest-serving Turkish leader, Erdogan, has been invited by French President Emmanuel Macron to attend a Nov. 11 celebration marking the end of a war where the Ottoman Empire was on the losing side.

In a sense, Macron is returning the invitation of Erdogan for the Syria summit held last month that gathered German, Russian and French leaders — the big guys — in Istanbul. A century ago, Ataturk was in Aleppo, commanding an army, and 100 years later, “the big guys” met in Istanbul to decide on the fate of Aleppo’s environs.

The 100th anniversary of the end of World War I may help Erdogan enhance his image as one of “the big guys” of international politics. He also announced that he will be meeting Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Paris. This is another clue that Erdogan is playing big and that he is one of the very few people in the international game who has leverage with the leaders of both the United States and Russia.

His relations with Washington are better than they have been for some time. Turkey has surprisingly become one of the eight countries exempted from the American oil sanctions against Iran. What makes Turkey privileged is that it is the only country among the eight on the oil waiver list that is Iran’s immediate neighbor.