I believe Erdogan (and Turkey in general) were big players in getting the wheat trade deal settled, as well as the prisoner exchange, though I could be misremembering. It’s just a weird situation of Erdogan having a history of centralizing power, but also making moves to be more relevant on the global stage.
It’s a real shame; Irvine has lots of great food, and it’s another large east-Asian population center within the LA-OC metro area, but it’s also so staunchly Republican that I can’t stand to watch local news down there.
That’s nothing against the university, though. I have family who got their degrees there, and I even took summer classes on campus once. I dig the school and it was my fallback when I applied for colleges (back when it was possible to have a fallback).