ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Russia and Iran of fueling tensions in the region -- Moscow by continuing to back the regime in Syria and Tehran with its growing confrontation with Riyadh. "The dangerous course that Russia is now on constitutes a very big problem, not only for itself and the region but also for the world," Erdogan said on Tuesday in a speech to Turkish ambassadors gathered for a conference in Ankara. "Russia's operations in Syria, the real purpose of which is to keep the al-Assad regime in power, are making regional problems deeper," the Hurriyet Daily News quoted him as saying. Both Iran and Russia directly back the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad which Turkey opposes. Iran funds the regime and has sent militias in to fight on its behalf. Russia directly intervened militarily last September and has been bombing forces opposed to Assad ever since. The diplomatic fallout between Russia and Turkey was followed this month by a row between Iran and Saudi Arabia after an Iranian mob burned the Saudi embassy in Tehran in response to Saudi Arabia's execution of a Shiite cleric the day before. Erdogan pinned the blame for this fallout on Iran, alleging that: "Iran is trying to ignite a new and dangerous process with its approach, turning sectarian divisions into confrontation. It is straining its relationship with Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries deliberately as part of this new strategy." Erdogan claimed that Russia is not, as it often claims, bombing ISIS in Syria. "On the contrary," the Turkish president claimed, "it's creating an environment for the establishment of a boutique Syria state around Latakia. It is hitting our Turkmen brothers in that region." He again justified Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane last November when he added: "In such a situation, the issue of (shooting down) the Russian jet was not a result, but a pretext for the point to which Russia has brought our bilateral relations."
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