Turkish President Erdogan’s firefighters

With the reshuffle of his cabinet after last month's election run-off, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has created a very powerful duo with his choice of minister for foreign affairs and intelligence chief. Apart from being close and trusted, Hakan Fidan and Ibrahim Kalin, respectively, are people with strong opinions and backbone who have been able to influence Erdogan significantly, without appearing to overshadow him, while also bringing him back to reality in certain cases. Both have carried out important missions, working mainly in the background, even though they have sat in on most of the meetings Erdogan has held with foreign leaders. Fidan acted as an unofficial national security adviser with expanded responsibilities and Kalin as a foreign affairs adviser, with a knack for tactfully handling sensitive cases and clearly more skill at it than former foreign minister...