Turkish prime minister in Japan

TOKYO, Japan - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) receives a gift from Katsumasa Tashima, mayor of Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, in Tokyo on Jan. 7, 2014. When the Ottoman Navy frigate Ertugrul sank off the coast of Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, in September 1890, people from the coastal town of Kushimoto rescued 69 sailors, while 587 died, in an incident described by Erdogan as the one that serves as the most important event in the two countries' shared history.