Raisi’s first state visit to Turkey comes amid heightened regional tensions against the backdrop of the Israel-Gaza war, with both Tehran and Ankara sharing common support for the Palestinian cause.
“Iran and Turkey have a common position in supporting the Palestinian people and the resistance of the oppressed, powerful Palestinian people,” Raisi said before boarding the plane bound for Ankara.
“We agree with President Erdogan on the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people to be given to them,” he later said during a speech in Ankara, as cited by Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu Agency.
His remarks come as Israel ramps up attacks against Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Lebanon, including the latter’s powerful Hezbollah group. Israel has also assassinated senior commanders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria recently.
Israel declared war on Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza strip after the group launched a large-scale air, ground, and sea offensive and infiltrated Israeli territory on October 7. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to turn all Hamas-controlled locations into “islands of ruins.”
Around 25,000 people have so far been killed as a result of Israeli offensives in the Gaza strip, according to the Palestinian health ministry, while 1,140 people were killed by Hamas raids on October 7, according to Israeli official figures.
Raisi also blasted the United Nations over its response to the Israel-Gaza war in a joint press conference with Erdogan, saying that it “has lost its effectiveness in the matter and has gone to the sidelines.”
While echoing Raisi’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war, Erdogan said that they discussed the “importance of further strengthening” cooperation against Kurdish groups across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, considered “terrorists” by Ankara.
The Iraq-Iran-Turkey triangle border has seen frequent conflict since the 1980s. Tehran and Ankara have both fought Kurdish groups in the mountains there. Some 500 villages have been emptied, farmlands and orchards destroyed, and civilians caught in the crossfire.
As part of the visit, Iranian and Turkish officials signed 10 cooperation documents in the fields of culture, media, transportation, electricity, energy, and economic and trade zones, with Raisi telling reporters that Iran has set a target of $30 billion in annual trade exchanges with “major economic partner” Turkey.
After a private meeting, Raisi and Erdogan co-chaired the eighth meeting of the High Council of Iran-Turkey Cooperation in Ankara.
Raisi was scheduled to visit Ankara in early January but deadly twin blasts at the shrine of slain Iranian top commander Qasem Soleimani in Kerman forced him to call off the visit.
On January 3, two explosions near the cemetery were Soleimani is buried killed at least 89 people. The Islamic State (ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack.
“We are sorry for the heinous terrorist attack that took place in Kerman on January 3, which caused the president to postpone his visit to our country. I condemn it once again,” Erdogan said in the joint presser with Raisi.
