It is also important to point out that (in addition to the points you mentioned) before his prime minister-ship, he had multiple meetings with top US diplomats and officials, and received their go-ahead. His ability to break the chain of coalition governments made it very enticing for the US to put and keep him on the throne, as they finally got a strongman that willingly undermined the independence and the political power of the Turkish Army, played well with Likud governments, opposed the Baathist regimes, placed many US informants in critical positions, supported the Iraq war effort (it famously got struck down in the parliament due to his own MP's betraying him, one of the biggest disasters in his political career that had him fall out of US favor for a while) and also the Iraqi-Kurdistan, allowed the creation of another Kurdish state in Syria (many would say it happened due to his incompetence, I would argue it has always been the plan), declared the "Kurdish problem" his own vendetta (he is currently collaborating with the founder of PKK to write a new constitution) and overall been super supportive of Kurdish entities in the region (despite what Reddit would tell you). In essence, he has just been the perfect lapdog to the US in whatever they wanted for the ME region.