Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned on Thursday against military intervention in Iran, amid continued uncertainty over whether US President Donald Trump would order attacks over the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters.
Speaking at a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey’s top diplomat said, “We believe Iran’s internal problems should be resolved amongst themselves.” He pinned the wave of protests sweeping Iran on economic woes that were being mistaken for an ideological uprising against the regime itself. “What gets confused here is that hardships people face due to economic and other difficulties can appear as an ideological uprising against the regime; in reality, this constitutes a gray area,” Fidan contended.
His remarks echo earlier statements by fellow Turkish officials, as unrest that erupted in late December over Iran’s crumbling economy has ballooned into one of the most sustained and widespread protest movements the clerical regime has faced since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power. Estimates of the death toll vary, and Iran has not released any official figure for how many protesters have been killed. But over 1,000 are thought to have perished, with the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organization putting the number late Wednesday at 3,428. In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed the figure as an “exaggeration” and part of a “misinformation campaign” designed to generate excuses for striking his country.
Fidan said Trump’s policies suggested that he was disinclined to intervene militarily. Trump does not have a “strong preference so far for the use of ground forces,” Fidan noted. Trump’s rhetoric appears to be bearing him out — for now. After threatening to punish Iran for the indiscriminate murder of civilians, Trump asserted late Wednesday that the killing in Iran had stopped and Tehran had told his administration that arrested protesters would not be executed. Analysts say, however, US intervention remains a real possibility.
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