Turkey, Iran Struggle To Keep Up Appearances
Ankara and Tehran ties are strained over Syria and Hezbollah.
The pretense of good ties Ankara and Tehran have been trying to maintain despite the deepening of the Syrian crisis — in which the two countries are supporting opposite sides — has started to shatter. Iran is also expressing dissatisfaction over Turkey’s peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which involves militants from the group moving out of Turkey into northern Iraq. While Turkey’s ties with Tehran become more confrontational, Ankara’s new regional enemy is turning out to be the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah.
Talking to the state-run Turkish TRT channel on May 12, Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu accused Iran of providing space for “the killer,” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to act. He went on to declare that he had cautioned his Iran counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, over the telephone recently that Tehran should opt for a deterrent approach toward Assad.
Davutoglu was also one of the keenest supporters of the Joint Statement issued after the meeting in Amman of the core members of the “Friends of Syria” group on May 22, which called for an immediate withdrawal by Hezbollah as well as “fighters from Iran” from Syrian territory.
Lashing out at Davutoglu for “raising unfounded allegations” against his country, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani was quoted by the Fars News Agency as saying during a parliamentary address that “Turkey was projecting the blame for its miscalculations in Syria on Tehran and Hezbollah.”
