French president to visit Turkey early next year

French President François Hollande will pay an official visit to Turkey in January on the first visit by a French leader to the country since 1993 when the former Socialist President Francois Mitterrand inaugurated the Francophone University in Istanbul. According to press sources, Hollande's visit will take place on Jan. 27-28. However, the Elysee and the French Foreign Ministry didn't confirm the visit yet. After nearly 20 years since Mitterrand's visit, Turkey has seen the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been the prime minister since 2003, and ongoing negotiations to join the EU. It has developed to become one of the fastest growing emerging markets. Although the heads of the U.S, Russia, China, Germany, Japan and many other countries visited Ankara during that period, Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy had not visited Turkey except for five hours in 2011, a move that was interpreted by analysts that it reflected the cold relations between the executive officials of the two countries. Turkey hopes that Hollande's visit would end the stalemate in relations between the two countries.