Ideally, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel should have appeared together in front of the 15,000 Turks gathered in Cologne to mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD) on May 24.
They would thus not only have contributed to the well-being of the 2.7 million Turks living in Germany, but also to amity between Turkey and Germany. Given his divisively bellicose style of politics, however — which has in fact worked for him in Turkey — it is difficult to see Erdogan in the role of unifier, pacifier or conciliator.