![Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani (R) and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands after a joint statement to the media in Baghdad on April 22, 2024.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-2148010548.jpg?h=a5ae579a&itok=qzgPZqmz)
![Ezgi Akin headshot (new)](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-04/IMG_0153.jpg?h=502e75fa&itok=I9IFt0g8)
In Ankara, reporting on diplomacy, EU-Turkey ties, NATO
Ezgi Akin is Al-Monitor’s correspondent in Anakara and associate editor of the Turkey Pulse. Prior to joining Al-Monitor, she covered the foreign policy beat in the country for over a decade, working for various Turkish media outlets as well as international media. Akin is a Fulbright alumna.
![Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani (R) and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands after a joint statement to the media in Baghdad on April 22, 2024.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-2148010548.jpg?h=a5ae579a&itok=qzgPZqmz)
![DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-883564226.jpg?h=a5ae579a&itok=SIDRBcPT)
![ILKER ERAY/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-2154446894.jpg?h=a5ae579a&itok=SQOYE2JL)
![This photograph taken in Lyon, eastern France, on Sept. 5, 2023, shows the entrance of the International Criminal Police Organization headquarters, known as Interpol.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-1645775618%20copy.jpeg?h=a5ae579a&itok=zL0m4MgL)
![Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar and the head of China's National Energy Administration in Beijing on May 22, 2024.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GOB0zRPWIAEC1nf.jpeg?h=827d3341&itok=PhQYKiP4)
![Passengers getting off a Turkish airline plane after it landed at the Kabul International Airport in Kabul on May 21, 2024.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-2153421908.jpg?h=1d34674f&itok=KhXgaDPK)
![A Turkish Bayraktar TB2 combat drone is on view during a presentation at the Lithuanian Air Force Base in Siauliai, Lithuania, on July 6, 2022.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-1241739465%20copy_0.jpeg?h=a5ae579a&itok=gOVQjZWx)
![Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, looks on during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad on April 22, 2024.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-2148010547%20copy.jpeg?h=a5ae579a&itok=eM86ErSZ)
![Iraqi autonomous Kurdish region's peshmerga forces and fighters from the Yazidi minority, a local Kurdish-speaking community targeted in a brutal campaign by the Islamic State (IS) group, enter the western Iraqi city of Sinjar, in the Nineveh Province, on Nov. 13, 2015.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-496966174%20copy.jpeg?h=1d34674f&itok=ln0oDT1N)
![Antony J. Blinken, United States Secretary of State, shakes hands with the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan before posing for the official press photo on the first day of the NATO foreign ministers' meeting at the NATO headquarters on April 03, 2024, in Brussels, Belgium.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-2135757522%20copy_0.jpeg?h=a5ae579a&itok=_2KnhqGq)
![SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP via Getty Images](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-1243870098.jpg?h=1d34674f&itok=BF0KDEWh)
![People are gathered to protest cooperation between Turkey and Israel.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/2024-05/GettyImages-2054036775.jpg?h=48896369&itok=3aees70F)