Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey Prime Minister, In Iran For Talks On Nuclear Program

TEHRAN, Iran -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials were to discuss Tehran's disputed nuclear program and the crisis in Syria with visiting Turkish prime minister on Wednesday.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Tehran from South Korea, where he attended a nuclear security summit and also held talks with President Barack Obama.

Turkey has built close economic ties with Iran and has been at odds with Washington over the best way to get Tehran to halt its nuclear program, arguing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff instead of sanctions. However, Turkey has also decided to host a NATO defense shield radar that would warn of any Iranian ballistic missiles in the region.

Iran and six world powers – U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany – have agreed to meet on April 13 for new nuclear talks but no decision has been made on the venue.

The last round of nuclear negotiations was held in Istanbul in January 2011, but ended without agreement.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he favored Istanbul as the venue for the April talks, but that a final decision is yet to be made by top Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton "within the coming days."

"Istanbul has expressed its readiness to host these talks and it remains one of the probable options for the negotiations," Salehi told the official IRNA news agency on Wednesday.

The U.S. and some of its allies accuse Iran of using its nuclear program as a cover to develop atomic weapons. Iran has denied the charges, saying the program is peaceful and aimed at producing electricity and radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.

The U.N. has imposed four rounds of sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel or materials for bomb.

Also, the European Union as well as the U.S. and others have imposed an oil embargo as part of sanctions to pressure Tehran into resuming talks on the country's nuclear program. They have also imposed tough banking sanctions aimed at limiting Iran's ability to sell oil, which accounts for 80 percent of its foreign revenue.

Apart from Iran's nuclear issue, Erdogan and Iranian officials will also likely discuss the crisis in Syria – an issue Tehran and Ankara vastly differ on.

Turkey has demanded that Assad step down over the yearlong conflict, which the U.N. says has left more than 9,000 people dead. Iran is a key ally of the Syrian regime and Ahmadinejad praised President Bashar Assad on Tuesday for the way the "Syrian authorities are managing the situation with confidence."

Turkey is to host about 60 countries, including the United States, for the "Friends of the Syrian People" conference in Istanbul on Sunday. The meeting will discuss ways to further isolate and pressure Assad, as well as measures to support the Syrian opposition.

Comments

[wakohnen]

09:13 AM on 03/28/2012

I believe that the American people are being led astray on the facts about Iran. If they really wanted a nuke, they could easily have had one already. It appears more like our government wants to steal their technology and is willing to use any excuse to achieve that objective. The only way for Iran to prove that they are not trying to create a warhead is to give up their technology.

[Vahuman]

11:27 AM on 03/28/2012

Qute "The only way for Iran to prove that they are not trying to create a warhead is to give up their technology".

Read the intel. reports in the news, and also the opinions of Kelley, Hans Blix and El-Baradai on their nuc. program and their opinin that the latest IAEA report was not based on scietific graounds but base on political proopganda. Those opinuions by intel. and nuc. experts are fact-based, not based on fiction and political propoganda.

Also, they already took that path w/France to supply for their nuc. power plants, France which had initially agreed, changed their mind.

Later. they already did so with EU, EU changed their position and moved the goal posts further.

And later, they already agreed and did so with the U.S. formula and demand which was mediated by Turkey and Brazil and agreed by Iran, it was denied and the goal posts were moved further, again.

[karim banned]

04:19 AM on 03/29/2012

West wants Iran to stop her research program in Nuclear field and many other fields as well.

It is against everything West is stand for if a theocracy can actually be in forefront of even selective fields of technology.

According to West, either there is separation of Church and State or the country goes back to stone age. West is ready to send Iran to stone age to prove the this doctrine holds water.

Unfortunately West assumes that all religions are like Catholic Church before Renaissance.

Also West forgets that in the Dark Age, Islamic countries were in forefront of development.

The history of the role of the religion in development and progress are the opposite of each other in West and East. But, Westerners either do not realize this or ignore it to have an excuse to bomb Iran.