BBC: It's a well-established fact that Queen Elizabeth doesn't do politics or diplomacy. Except, of course, that she does, most especially when she is on a state visit to a foreign country.
All such visits are chosen and controlled by the British Foreign Office. Their unashamed purpose is to further what British diplomats perceive to be Britain's interests abroad.
And there are few more potent message-bearers in the British diplomatic arsenal than its veteran head of state, widely recognised - by virtue of her 56 years on the throne - as the Western world's senior statesperson.
In coming to Turkey, the Queen is - at the behest of the Foreign Office - sending a very clear message in support of Turkey's aspiration to join the European Union and, by implication, to be Westward-facing.
But the underlying message of this state visit is both more subtle and more important than that.
Embracing democracy
It is a diplomatic cliche that Turkey stands at the crossroads between Europe and Asia - a country of 72 million people whose strategic significance is hard to overstate but which is sometimes overlooked.
So far as the West is concerned, Turkey can be said to be the most successful example of a Muslim country which has embraced democracy.
Potentially, as one Western diplomat put it, the country is an example to the rest of the Muslim world of how democracy can work. State Visit Sends Message to Turkey >>> By Nicholas Witchell, Royal correspondent, BBC News | May 13, 2008
My Essay on Islam and democracy:
Islam: The Enemy of Democracy and Freedom >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)
