Ankara: Iran's President Raisi will not travel to Turkey after all
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will not be traveling to Turkey on Tuesday as previously announced. This was announced by the Turkish presidency to the AFP news agency. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had spoken to Raisi on the phone on Sunday. It was initially unclear whether the visit had been canceled or postponed.
Erdogan had announced Raisi's visit in mid-November. The meeting between the two heads of state was to discuss a joint position on the war between Israel and the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas.
At the beginning of November, the foreign ministers of both countries announced that they would convene a regional conference to prevent the war from spreading. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Ankara that the countries in the region must "live up to their responsibilities".
The Turkish minister referred to "clear signs" from his Iranian counterpart that "other armed elements in the region could intervene in the conflict if conditions do not change". Iran's Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, for his part, urged that such a meeting of "regional leaders, Muslim and Arab states be held as soon as possible". He also called on the Muslim world to boycott Israeli products because of the war.
Iran, which is allied with the Islamist Hamas, had welcomed their brutal attack on Israel as a "success", but denies any involvement in it. Last month, Tehran threatened to intervene in the war between Israel and Hamas.
Following the Hamas attack, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage, Israel began launching massive attacks on targets in the Gaza Strip from the air and on the ground. According to Hamas, which cannot be independently verified, more than 15,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since then. Following protracted negotiations, a ceasefire came into force on Friday, which has since been extended until Wednesday.
The cancellation of President Raisi's visit to Turkey might impact the discussion on a joint positioning towards the Gaza war between Turkey and Iran. Despite the call between Erdogan and Raisi, the Turkish presidency announced that Raisi would not be traveling to Ankara on Tuesday. Previously, Turkey and Iran had agreed to convene a regional conference to prevent the conflict from escalating, with both foreign ministers expressing concerns about potential interventions by other armed elements in the region.
Source: www.ntv.de
