Turkey’s Erdogan tours world stage but misses royal funeral
The Turkish president’s foreign trips are widely seen as a way of boosting his image at home.
ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's globetrotting week has seen him meeting the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and addressing the UN General Assembly summit in New York.
Erdogan’s foreign visits are a key opportunity for the president to parade his credentials as an important world figure — an approach advisers hope will boost his image among voters at home.
Images carried by Turkey’s pro-government media seek to underline this message. A photograph of him chatting with fellow leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Ilhan Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan’s capital Samarkand was headlined “Leaders’ eyes on President Erdogan” across many Turkish newspapers.
Turkey has been a “dialogue partner” to the SCO — dubbed a “dictators’ club” by critics over its authoritarian membership — since 2012. Erdogan told reporters that Turkey was aiming to join the organization.
