Strange coincidences play a significant role in the queen's life in terms of Turkey. Her last visit coincided with an extraordinary time in Turkey's political history; a previous visit occurred when Turkey

was going through another extraordinary phase in our political history. The year of her visit, 1971, was the year when the army stepped in to dismiss the existing government of the time and was ruling the country behind the scenes.

If I am not mistaken, rumor had it during the time, when the Special Court issued a series of harsh decisions on the Democrat Party (DP) leadership in 1961, a year after Turkey was shaken politically by a military takeover, Queen Elizabeth endured a trip to Turkey to ask for clemency for those politicians who were convicted and sentenced to execution. According to some accounts she was turned down by the military rulers and returned to her country without even seeing any place outside the airport. The military rulers went ahead with hanging three prominent politicians.

If that account is true, all the queen's visits to Turkey, three in total, happened during times of hardship for Turkish democracy.

Gül, for his part, has lived through his personal history parallel to the queen's...  When the queen paid an official visit to Turkey in 1971, Gül was at university and involved in student activities. The queen's country, Britain, wasn't regarded a "friend" by conservative students like Gül at the time, because of its part in dissolving the Ottoman Empire. Many intellectuals in Turkey blamed the queen's ancestors for shrinking the huge empire that spanned four continents at its peak into a small territory in Anatolia.

When Gül went to further his studies -- first in London then in Exeter -- during the late 1970s, he was impressed by what he saw in Britain. I know that he was impressed from firsthand experience, since I shared a flat with him in London during his stay there. When we visited the British Museum or walked through the historical sites, we always found many things to like.

The year 1977, when Abdullah Gül spent a whole year in London, was also the time for the queen's silver jubilee. There were various activities to celebrate her 25 years on the throne, one of which concerned us closely. A new line in the London underground was put into service, named the "Jubilee Line." Since we lived in Kilburn then, we used the line excessively. I remember myself coming eye-to-eye with the queen in one of her public outings that year.

When the queen became a recluse by cutting all ties with her subjects, I don't know. I don't even know if this is a correct portrayal of her, or misjudgment influenced by Stephen Frears' 2006 movie, "The Queen." In the movie Queen Elizabeth is portrayed as an uncaring ruler living behind high walls, never sharing the sensitivities of her people. Even the charm of lovely Helen Mirren, who played the queen in the movie, didn't save her image.

To tell you the truth, when I went to the presidential palace for the state banquet, expecting the tedious royal etiquette would hold us captive for a couple of hours, I encountered a different tableau. No chaperon asked me to bow in front of the queen. I wasn't warned to refrain from coming eye-to eye with her, and I shook her hand, too. She even smiled at me.

I saw her smiling at President Gül at the banquet when he said the following before the toast: "Today, the Turkish and British nations have several similarities: We take pride in our past, our core values and national identities. What binds us, today, however, is not only the glorious past or the common values that we cherish, but a future defined with our vigor and commitment as partners in acting as forces for good in pursuit of peace, greater global stability and a better democratic and libertarian practice in the world."

I hope the queen wasn't rewinding the reels of recent Turkish political history through her own eyes when she smiled at these words.