Sharra’s Schedule: On Fidan’s Advice to Riyadh, Aboard Erdoğan’s Plane to Ankara

This week’s article has two parts. First, we’ll turn to the Syrian president’s visits to Riyadh and Ankara. Then, we’ll examine cultural hegemony and the AKP’s offensive against artists in Turkey.

Following the section on Syria’s interim president Al-Sharra’s first two foreign trips—first to Riyadh, then to Ankara—the next discussion shifts to a broader, more conceptual issue: cultural hegemony and the right-wing assault on artists, journalists, and academics. It runs a tad bit long, but skipping it would disappoint me :(

Interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharra met Erdoğan at Ankara’s Beştepe Palace. Src. AA.

As you may recall, Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharra, held his first meeting with a foreign minister—not with an Arab counterpart, but with Turkey’s Hakan Fidan—shortly after he effectively assumed office in Damascus.

Before that meeting, a suit was sent to him from a well-known Turkish luxury brand. Shoes, too. Since then, al-Sharra has hosted a steady stream of high-level emissaries from around the world. But his first foreign visit had to be symbolic. The AKP—more precisely, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and spy chief İbrahim Kalın—advised him to follow the same s…