Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to be in Albania today and tomorrow, Friday, during a trip in which he is expected to seek to enhance Turkey’s economic and diplomatic presence in the Balkans.

Erdoğan will be in Albania today to inaugurate the Great Mosque of Tirana, the largest in the Balkans, the construction of which was financed by Turkey.

Ankara is “among the five largest foreign investors” in Albania, with investments totaling $3.5 billion, Erdoğan stated earlier this winter when he welcomed Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. More than 600 Turkish companies employ over 15,000 Albanians, he added.

#SONDURUM Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, çeşitli temaslarda bulunmak için bugün Arnavutluk'un başkenti Tiran'a gidiyor. Cumhurbaşkanı Bayram Begay ile baş başa ve heyetler arası görüşmelerde bulunacak. Arnavutluk başbakanı Edi Rama ile de bir araya gelecek. @ednautra pic.twitter.com/yKQzZDJ10x

— 24 TV (@yirmidorttv) October 10, 2024

The cooperation is also military between these two NATO member countries: Tirana received its first Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles purchased from Turkey this year.

Following his visit to Albania, Erdoğan will be in Serbia tomorrow, a country where Turkey returned in 2017. That year, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and his Turkish counterpart sealed the reconciliation of their countries.

Five centuries of Ottoman rule in Serbia and the cultural and historical proximity between Turkey and Kosovo have complicated relations between the two countries.

“This visit repaired relations with Serbia,” says researcher Vuk Vuksanović. Since then, “the Balkans have become a true success story for Turkish diplomacy.”

Relations had occasionally cooled, such as when Ankara sold unmanned aerial vehicles to Kosovo—a move that Belgrade deemed “unacceptable” at the time. However, this affront could be washed away with a new cooperation agreement, Vuksanović emphasizes.

“I would not be surprised if a military agreement is reached,” explains the researcher, who sees three main axes in this visit: “military cooperation, the position of Turkish businesses, and Belgrade’s willingness to persuade Ankara to reduce its support for Kosovo.”

Although Serbia is a more recent partner than Albania, it has also become an important economic field for Ankara. The total value of Turkish investments there “increased from $1 million to $400 million (about 365 million euros) over the last 10 years,” according to the president of the Turkey-Serbia Business Council, as reported by the Turkish news agency Anadolu in June.

According to Serbian government data, Turkish exports to Serbia reached $2.131 billion in 2022, up from $1.149 billion in 2020 (1.95 billion euros versus 1.05 billion euros).

Belgrade is also a major travel destination for Turks, who were the second-largest group of tourists in 2022, just behind Bosnians and ahead of Russians.