Balkan Leaders Flock to Erdogan Inauguration

Balkan leaders were high on the foreign guest list as Turkey's strongman for 16 years, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was sworn in as President once again at the country's parliament in Ankara on Monday.

Besides winning the presidential election, Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, and its allies also won general elections on June 24 and will rule the country for another five years.

The ceremony also saw the attendance of head of states and governments, heads of international institutions, vice presidents, politicians, diplomats and many others. Balkan leaders and representatives were numerous among them.

According to the Turkish presidential office, 22 heads of states and six prime ministers and parliament speakers were due to attend the ceremony.

Balkan heads of state attending the inauguration ceremony included the Bosniak member of Bosnia's three-member state presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, Bulgarian President Rumen Dadev, Kosovo President Hasim Thaci, Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, Moldovan President Igor Dodon and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Albania's Edi Rama was the only Prime Minister from a Balkan country at the ceremony.

Muslim leaders from the Balkans as well as representatives of ethnic Turkish communities and leaders of political parties and civil society groups from the Balkans also attended.

The head of the Montenegrin Islamic Community Rifat Fejzic and the ethnic Turkish member of Macedonia's National Security Council, Furkan Cako, were among them, as was the Governor of the Autonomous Gagauzia province in Moldova, Irina Vlah.

Foreign attendees mostly came from regions with which Turkey has close relations and from former Ottoman lands in the Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia and...