Turkey, Iran discuss Syria peace talks

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Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Summit in Baku on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of Iran, Turkey and Egypt leading a peace process to end the conflict in Syria, according to Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency.

Erdogan’s plan comes on the heels of a quartet scheme recently devised by Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi which was rejected by Saudi Arabia because it involved Shiite Iran, Syria’s chief ally.

Erdogan said he proposed various scenarios for other key stakeholders to get involved in future talks on Syria.

“We proposed a three-way system here. This system could be a trio of Turkey-Egypt-Iran,” Erdogan said to reporters upon his return to Ankara. “A second system could be Turkey-Russia-Iran. A third system could be Turkey-Egypt-Saudi Arabia.”

Erdogan also said during Tuesday’s meeting that Iran and Turkey “enjoy abundant capacities for the further expansion of bilateral ties.”

Meanwhile, during Tuesday’s press briefing, U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland rejected the idea of involving Iran in any future discussions:

“We continue to believe that the Iranians are a malign force in this, that they are actively aiding and abetting the Syrian regime and its war machine. So they can halt that activity before we would see them as productive in any multilateral efforts.”

Nuland said the U.S. did not have advance notice of Erdogan’s meeting with Ahmadinejad but said “our full expectation, based on what we know of Prime Minister Erdogan’s position, is that he was, no doubt, extremely frank with Ahmadinejad about the Turkish concerns.”

Turkey has been plagued by Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war, which has killed more than 30,000 people since President Bashar al-Assad began cracking down on protesters nearly two years ago. Turkey has absorbed countless refugees, has exchanged mortar fire with Syrian forces and has fought Kurdish rebels who have exploited the chaos in their bid for statehood.

Washington’s options are limited – it needs Turkey to defuse the crisis while making sure the region isn’t overrun by extremists.

Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla contends that most of the major players involved – including Turkey, the U.S., Iran, Russia and the Gulf states – want to avoid regime change because they are not “prepared to weather the consequences of de-Baathification, which would dismantle the state machinery, sideline the Alawite minority and plunge the country more deeply into civil war.”

Regional experts argue that the political opposition is not a credible alternative to Assad because it is too fragmented and dominated by Muslim Brotherhood radicals. Others fear once the regime falls the country’s Sunni majority will seek retribution against minorities as extremists fill the post-Assad power vacuum.

American leaders are wary of fully supporting anti-government forces on the ground for fear of weapons falling into the hands of Islamist jihadists, including Al Qaeda elements, while U.S. military officials believe large-scale military intervention, at this point, would be counterproductive.

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12 responses to “Turkey, Iran discuss Syria peace talks”

  1. Fauzia45 Avatar

    If you do  not want the region ¨overrun by extremists¨,you must do justice to the region and to the people of this region!!

    1. Lebanon1o452 Avatar
      Lebanon1o452

      when you believe in something, you cannot but be radical; because a belief is never rational; and irrationality makes you inevitably an extremist. Look at 5th drawer, a jewish atheist who believes in the absence of God; her belief in the absence of God makes her the most blind radical on this blog. She has extase on the death of those who disagree with her belief namely the believers in God and i bet three saoudi camels on her that she wouldnt hesitate to kill them if she had the opportunity

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar

        You can surmise all you wish about me … it’s only words.
        I wouldn’t hesitate to defend myself … from any form of assault – and in kind … but I’m not ‘out there’ hunting.

        1. Lebanon1o452 Avatar
          Lebanon1o452

          i reciprocate the surmise but, n your case, can you defend the undefendable!

  2. Fauzia45 Avatar

    If you do  not want the region ¨overrun by extremists¨,you must do justice to the region and to the people of this region!!

    1. Lebanon1o452 Avatar
      Lebanon1o452

      when you believe in something, you cannot but be radical; because a belief is never rational; and irrationality makes you inevitably an extremist. Look at 5th drawer, a jewish atheist who believes in the absence of God; her belief in the absence of God makes her the most blind radical on this blog. She has extase on the death of those who disagree with her belief namely the believers in God and i bet three saoudi camels on her that she wouldnt hesitate to kill them if she had the opportunity

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar

        You can surmise all you wish about me … it’s only words.
        I wouldn’t hesitate to defend myself … from any form of assault – and in kind … but I’m not ‘out there’ hunting.

        1. Lebanon1o452 Avatar
          Lebanon1o452

          i reciprocate the surmise but, n your case, can you defend the undefendable!

  3. FREE TERRORIST ARMY HOLDING UP A STORE IN SYRIA.

    youtube.COM/watch?v=ikrtuwxslds&feature=g-user-c

  4. FREE TERRORIST ARMY HOLDING UP A STORE IN SYRIA.

    youtube.COM/watch?v=ikrtuwxslds&feature=g-user-c

  5. 5thDrawer Avatar

    Ahmadinejinejinejad looking a little more stunned than usual in that pic. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall in some of these ‘meetings’?
    ” …. consequences of de-Baathification, which would dismantle the state machinery …”
    Well now, THERE’s an excuse by certified bureaucrats if there ever was one. MOST countries have trouble with their bureaucratic systems. Not counting the facts of modern life with dozens of pre-recorded messages to push buttons that cost time being shunted to new message lists or eventually hang a phone up, dealing with bureaucracy to try and get some real answers is the most frustrating thing one could do in any given day. 
    And if you ever got the same person twice in a row with a good answer to your question, it would be a miracle. Communist Russia stopped functioning because it’s bureaucracy  was afraid to give any answer lest it be jailed. In the ‘free’ world it seems the bureaucracy will run off a line of ‘experise’ that only defies logic and will have you trying to make more phone calls.
    In Lebanon, there’s a voice that says: ‘It’s going to cost you to get an answer.’
    Sometimes state machinery NEEDS to be dismantled.

  6. 5thDrawer Avatar

    Ahmadinejinejinejad looking a little more stunned than usual in that pic. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall in some of these ‘meetings’?
    ” …. consequences of de-Baathification, which would dismantle the state machinery …”
    Well now, THERE’s an excuse by certified bureaucrats if there ever was one. MOST countries have trouble with their bureaucratic systems. Not counting the facts of modern life with dozens of pre-recorded messages to push buttons that cost time being shunted to new message lists or eventually hang a phone up, dealing with bureaucracy to try and get some real answers is the most frustrating thing one could do in any given day. 
    And if you ever got the same person twice in a row with a good answer to your question, it would be a miracle. Communist Russia stopped functioning because it’s bureaucracy  was afraid to give any answer lest it be jailed. In the ‘free’ world it seems the bureaucracy will run off a line of ‘experise’ that only defies logic and will have you trying to make more phone calls.
    In Lebanon, there’s a voice that says: ‘It’s going to cost you to get an answer.’
    Sometimes state machinery NEEDS to be dismantled.

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