Middle East
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Turkmenistan on November 28, 2021. Photo: Erdogan's office
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi are set to discuss potential steps to enhance cooperation between the two countries during Erdogan’s visit to Tehran, Turkey’s presidency said on Sunday.
Erdogan is set to “pay an official visit to Iran on July 18-19” at the invitation of Raisi, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
He will chair the seventh meeting of Turkey-Iran High Level Cooperation Council where “all aspects” of Ankara and Tehran’s relations and potential steps that would enhance the bilateral cooperation will be discussed,” it added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is also expected to land in Tehran on Tuesday where he will meet with Raisi and Erdogan for trilateral talks on Syria.
Ankara, Tehran, and Moscow are the guarantors of the Astana peace process which was launched in 2017 with the aim of ending the Syrian conflict. The 18th round of talks was held in the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan last month, with the focus placed on Turkish plans to carry out a new military operation against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria.
The talks will include the recent developments in Syria, the fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and the humanitarian situation in Syria, the Turkish presidency’s statement noted.
Raisi and Erdogan discussed PKK’s threat on their borders in November.
The PKK is an armed group fighting for greater rights for Kurds and Ankara considers it a terrorist organization. Turkey and Iran frequently carry out cross-border ground and air operations claiming to be targeting Kurdish groups based along the border or inside the Kurdistan Region where the PKK and Kurdish opposition groups from Iran all have a presence.
Iran and Turkey share complex ties of tension and cooperation as both countries compete for influence in the Middle East.
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