Turkey, Iran presidents meet to defuse tensions

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed today to improve ties, including in the fight against terrorism, Iran’s state news agency IRNA said, following some angry exchanges between the regional rivals.

Tehran and Ankara support opposite sides in the conflict in Syria. Largely Shia Iran backs the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, while Turkey, which is majority Sunni, has backed elements of the Syrian opposition, including the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Last month Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu both accused Iran of trying to destabilise Syria and Iraq and of sectarianism, prompting Tehran to summon Ankara’s ambassador.

Read: Iran warns Turkey: Our patience has limits

Erdogan and Rouhani met on the sidelines of an economic cooperation summit in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, IRNA said, though it gave no details of their talks.

Regional rivalry between Iran and Turkey is nothing new, but political analysts have linked Ankara’s tougher rhetoric to US President Donald Trump’s approach to the Middle East.

Trump has been sharply critical of Iran, including a nuclear deal it clinched in 2015 with major powers, while Turkey, a NATO ally, is hoping for improved ties with Washington after a chill caused partly by US criticism of Ankara’s human rights record.

In another conciliatory move by Turkey, Cavusoglu told IRNA in an interview published today that Ankara had appreciated Tehran’s expressions of support for the government during a failed military coup against Erdogan on 15 July 2016.

Read: Opposition group criticises Iran’s policies in Syria

“Iran was with us to support our government in every minute at that night while some other countries only called us days or even weeks after the attempted coup,” IRNA quoted him as saying.

Last week Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had called Turkey an ungrateful neighbour.

“They [Turkey] accuse us of sectarianism but don’t remember we didn’t sleep on the night of the coup,” he said.

Despite the often sharp rhetorical exchanges between the two regional powers, some have accused Ankara of criticising Iran as part of a populist campaign to capitalise on anti-Iranian sentiment in Turkey. This is because Cavusoglu and Zarif have been repeatedly photographed together, warmly hugging each other in far friendlier exchanges than those customarily expected between top diplomats.