Turkey summons Iranian ambassador around Azeri poem tensions

Turkey has summoned the Iranian ambassador to Ankara in excess of Iran’s indignant response to the Turkish president’s recitation of a poem during a take a look at to Azerbaijan

ISTANBUL — Turkey on Saturday summoned the Iranian ambassador to Ankara about Iran’s “aggressive” reaction to the Turkish president’s recitation of a poem on a pay a visit to to Azerbaijan, which Tehran deemed to assist a secession of Azeri ethnic areas of Iran.

The diplomatic spat among neighbors Iran and Turkey commenced earlier this 7 days when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who strongly backs Azerbaijan, read through components of a poem through a parade in the Caucasian country’s money of Baku. The verses that Erdogan read bundled lines about how a border tore aside historical Azeri, or Azerbaijani, lands “by force.”

In a assertion Saturday, Turkey’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said Iranians experienced distorted the this means of the poem “to gas senseless tensions.”

The Turkish and Iranian foreign ministers spoke by telephone afterwards on Saturday. A Turkish foreign ministry formal claimed Mevlut Cavusoglu told his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, that public statements coming out of Tehran aimed at the Turkish leader were being “baseless” and unacceptable, when other channels of communication had been offered between the two governments.

In the cell phone simply call, Cavusoglu also gave an assurance that Erdogan thoroughly respects Iran’s countrywide sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to Iran’s point out-operate news agency.

IRNA extra that the Turkish diplomat spelled out his president had not been conscious of the sensitivities bordering the traces he recited in Baku.

Altun mentioned the Iranian ambassador to Ankara was summoned late Friday to the international ministry. It came just after Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador to Tehran for an rationalization in excess of Erdogan’s “meddlesome and unacceptable” remarks in Baku.

Altun mentioned the poem “passionately demonstrates the emotional practical experience of an aggrieved people owing to Armenia’s profession of Azerbaijani lands. It does not incorporate any references to Iran.”

Iran’s 3 northwestern provinces — West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan and Ardabil — have a predominantly ethnic Azeri population that speaks a Turkic language.

Erdogan visited Baku and attended a parade to celebrate a modern cease-fire agreement that permitted Azerbaijan to reclaim command around broad swathes of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding lands in a conflict with Armenia.

“It should not be overlooked that Turkey stood in solidarity with the Iranian point out and men and women, in spite of the risk of having to endure international pressures, at challenging situations for Iran,” Altun mentioned in his statement.

Tehran and Ankara have preserved mostly cordial relations, regardless of fighting on opposite sides of regional conflicts like the Syrian war, and extreme U.S. trade sanctions towards Iran.

Iranian Overseas Minister Zarif underscored the significance of helpful relations among the two neighbors, in his telephone phone with his Turkish counterpart Saturday.