Ibrahim Kalin

A Turkish preparatory delegation is holding high-level talks with U.S. officials in Washington ahead of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's visit in the U.S. capital on May 16-17, when he will meet U.S. President Donald Trump.

Turkish Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar met his U.S. counterpart Joseph Dunford on May 6 in Washington, where they discussed developments in Iraq and Syria, the Turkish military told state-run Anadolu Agency in a statement.       

It was the tomato that left its mark on the meeting at Sochi between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was announced that the two leaders were able to reach a consensus on a complicated and critical matter like Syria but were not able to agree on the one issue on tomatoes.  

A Turkish preparatory delegation is visiting the U.S. on May 5 ahead of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's visit to Washington on May 16-17, when he will meet U.S. President Donald Trump. 

The delegation is composed of Chief of General Staff Org. Hulusi Akar, Chief of Intelligence Hakan Fidan and presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın. 

The United States is mulling over starting the much-anticipated Raqqa operation to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) immediately after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's first in-person meeting with President Donald Trump in mid-May, amid reports that the White House may give a green light for providing weapons to the Syrian Kurds in a more direct way. 

Turkey's new presidential system will end weak coalition governments and strengthen checks and balances, İbrahim Kalın, presidential spokesperson, has said. 

Kalın wrote an article for U.K. newspaper the Guardian which said Turkey's short-lived coalition governments of the past had crippled its economy, weakened national institutions and paved the way for coups. 

Turkey's relations with the European Union will continue, two high-level state officials have said as relations between Ankara and the bloc face a difficult test.

When in August 2013, in his capacity as chief foreign policy advisor to then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, today's Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın tweeted: "It is wrong to claim 'Turkey has been left alone in the Middle East.' But if this was the criticism leveled, then I should say this is precious isolation." 

The Ankara Chief Prosecutor's Office has launched a probe into a former French diplomat on charges of "instigation of the assassination of the president," a presidential spokesperson said on April 24.

İbrahim Kalın told a press meeting that a statement by Philippe Moreau Defarges was not an insult or a criticism but a call for an assassination.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is scheduled to meet on April 25 to discuss whether to degrade Turkey's status and reopen a monitoring process against the country, in what has been decried as a politically motivated move by Ankara.