Mutual trust to solve Mideast problems: Turkish envoy

By Mustafa Melih Ahiskali

TEHRAN (AA) – Turkish ambassador to Iran Riza Hakan Tekin said Monday mutual trust is the key to solving problems in the Middle East.

“Trust is what we need the most in the region,” Tekin told a conference titled “Turkey’s Middle East policies” at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University.

“It seems difficult to solve problems [in the region] without settling [trust] issue,” he said.

The diplomat said regional problems should be solved by countries in the region.

“Every problem which can’t be solved becomes deeper,” he said.

“In principle we want the region’s problems to be solved by the countries of this region,” Tekin said.

He went on to say “our vision for the region is to ensure permanent peace, stability, and economic development.”

“If we can achieve this, the future will be much brighter,” he added.

The diplomat listed the occupation of Afghanistan, the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Arab Spring revolutions as reasons for why the Middle East has been going through major transformations.

-Turkey-Iran relations

On Turkey’s relations with Iran, Tekin said: “Only by looking at a map we would see how important these two countries are for each other.”

“National interest is the main element of international politics,” he said. “But it is not possible to say this for Turkey and Iran because our interests are common and even if we have a competition, we have to keep this competition in mind while taking into account the interests of both countries. We can see that they [Iran and Turkey] act by watching out this.”