One of Turkey’s leading media outlets, Hurriyet Daily News, announced that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will come to the United States to meet with President Barack Obama on May 16.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry received the official invitation on Tuesday, April 2.

While the meeting could not have taken place without repair to relations between Turkey and Israel, the primary focus of the visit is expected to be the ongoing civil war in Syria, which has enormous spillover effect on and dangers for both Turkey and Israel.  A diplomatic source revealed to Hurriyet that Erdoğan’s visit to Washington “was fixed in a phone conversation on the day Israel apologized to Turkey.”

Most international commentators agree that Turkey is hoping the U.S. will take a lead role in enforcing an end to the violence in Syria. The U.S. administration, however, is reluctant to become directly involved by providing lethal support to opposition forces, fearing weapons falling into the hands of extremists.  The U.S. instead prefers a diplomatic approach to ending the current crisis.

In addition to the visit by the Turkish prime minister to the U.S., it was also announced that a series of diplomatic meetings are now scheduled to enable Turkey and Israel to normalize relations. An Israeli diplomatic delegation will travel to Ankara on April 11 to meet with Turkish delegates.  Discussions will focus on ensuring that an exchange of ambassadors will take place towards the end of June.

Another diplomacy track for the negotiating teams deals with compensation to be paid by Israel to families of those Turks killed during the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara flotilla which was attempting to breach Israel’s legal naval blockade of Gaza in late May, 2010.  Eight Turks died after Israelis opened fire when fellow soldiers who had boarded the ship were attacked with iron bars and knives.

The Turkish government’s goal is apparently to get the families of those who died during the blockade flotilla fiasco to agree to accept compensation from Israel in exchange for dropping their lawsuits against Israeli officials. Turkey’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç were scheduled to meet with the families late Tuesday.

Although the Turkish Prime Minister has stated that he will soon visit Gaza, no details on that visit have yet been announced.

Simultaneous operations were launched in Germany and Turkey to catch a network of smugglers believed to have transferred nuclear equipment they obtained from India and Germany to a nuclear facility in Iran’s Arak city, the Turkish daily Habertürk reported.

The network coordinated hundreds of smuggling operations of nuclear equipment from India, and some 100 smuggling operations of nuclear substances from Germany, through fake companies registered in Istanbul, Turkey.

During the reported seven simultaneous operations in Istanbul, a Turkish citizen of Iranian origin was detained, while all the documents of the companies involved were seized.

In another operation that was conducted in Atatürk Airport, Houssein T., an Iranian who is a key figure in deliveries, was also detained. During the operations in Germany, meanwhile, five Iranian nationals were detained.

Units from Customs Enforcement Directorate reportedly raided the house of an Iranian couple, who have a key role in the network, but were unable to locate them. Multilateral operations are reportedly ongoing for the arrest of the couple.

Also, the data and documents obtained from the raids are currently under examinations and new operations might be launched if necessary, according to the report. Units from Customs raided seven businesses in Istanbul’s Bakırköy, Fatih, Üsküdar, Ümraniye and Sancaktepe districts in simultaneous operations.

While the Turkish government appears to have cooperated with the West in capturing some of the network members, Turkish officials continue to support Iran’s nuclear program.

In late Februaty, the Iranian propaganda agency Press TV reported that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has once again reaffirmed Ankara’s support for Iran’s right to have a “peaceful nuclear program.”

“Referring to the Tehran Declaration which was issued in May 2010 following trilateral talks among Iran, Turkey and Brazil based on which Tehran agreed to swap its low-enriched uranium for reactor fuel on Turkish soil, Davutoglu said that the US and its Western allies imposed more pointless sanctions against Iran instead of allowing the declaration to move forward,” Press TV reported.