Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed to his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian to play a “mediator” role between Tehran and Washington, as tensions escalate between the US and Iran with threats of American military intervention and immediate Iranian response. “During their phone conversation, President Erdogan emphasized that Turkey is ready to play a mediating role between Iran and the US in order to de-escalate tensions and resolve problems,” the Turkish presidency stated in an announcement.
For his part, Pezeshkian estimated that Washington should stop threats of military intervention in Iran to give diplomacy a chance, the Iranian presidency noted. “The success of any diplomatic initiative depends on the goodwill of the interested parties and refraining from hostile and threatening moves and actions in the region,” Pezeshkian noted during his conversation with Erdogan.
According to the Turkish press, the Turkish president is also pushing for organizing a trilateral US-Iran-Turkey summit. Meanwhile, this morning Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Istanbul, who will meet with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.
Turkey: Relations with Iran
Turkey, a NATO member country, wants to avoid at any cost a military escalation in its region, which risks triggering a new migration wave and creating a new conflict in the area, after Syria.
At the same time, Turkey maintains close commercial relations with Iran and banned organizing any mobilization in support of Iranian protesters at the beginning of the year.
For preventive reasons, Ankara is preparing “to strengthen security at its borders” with Iran, a senior Turkish official told AFP.
Turkey has already built a 380-kilometer wall along the border, “but this is not enough,” the same official added.
The wall, reinforced with barbed wire and trenches where the Turkish army patrols 24 hours a day, was built to limit crossings of migrants coming from Iran and Afghanistan and drug trafficking.
At the height of protests in Iran, no significant increase in migration flows was observed, but potential American strikes might change the situation.
