Erdoğan was speaking to reporters in New York on Saturday after Western leaders on Friday accused Iran of hiding a nuclear plant it is building southwest of Tehran. US President Barack Obama warned Iran it would face “sanctions that bite” if it did not come clean.
The prime minister stated that any attempt to impose sanctions on Tehran's gas industry -- Iran has the world's second largest natural gas reserves -- would be especially problematic for its neighbor Turkey.
“By the end of next month I will be visiting Iran, and I will talk about this [the Iranian nuclear program],” Erdoğan said, noting that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was expected to visit Iran on Oct. 1 -- the same day an Iranian delegation meets the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany for talks on its nuclear program in Geneva.
Asked if Turkey would support fresh UN Security Council action against Iran, Erdoğan said: “Without seeing what would be in the resolution, it's difficult to say. We would look at the text, and we would make our contribution and then we would make a decision.”
Erdoğan, Obama discuss Karabakh in tete-a-tete Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama held a brief tete-a-tete after the Group of 20 summit at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh ended on Friday. In addition to the Middle East, efforts at normalization between Armenia and Turkey and the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan were on agenda of the talks between the two leaders, the Anatolia news agency reported. While Obama emphasized the importance of the normalization of ties between Armenia and Turkey for the entire region, Erdoğan stressed that intensification of efforts by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group, which has been working for a decade and a half to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, would contribute more to the normalization process, Anatolia reported. The United States, France and Russia are the three co-chairs of the Minsk Group. Obama, in response, told Erdoğan that he has been aware of the critical importance of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute in the Turkey-Armenia normalization efforts, the agency said. As of Saturday, speaking at a press conference in New York, Erdoğan told reporters that Obama reassured him of an acceleration of efforts by the Minsk Group, as he also noted that he brought up the same issue during his bilateral meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, which took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, meanwhile, had a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on Saturday, again on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. The normalization process between Ankara and Yerevan and efforts by the Minsk group were on the agenda of the meeting, diplomatic sources told Anatolia. Ankara Today's Zaman with wires |
Turkey is currently a member of the 15-nation Security Council, which has already passed three rounds of sanctions on Iranian firms and individuals designed to persuade Tehran to halt uranium enrichment aimed at producing nuclear fuel. Iran acknowledged the existence of the enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom for the first time on Monday in a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.
US officials said the disclosure was designed to pre-empt an announcement by Western governments, which were aware of the site, but Ahmadinejad said the plant was legal and open for inspection by the IAEA.
“Statements by Ahmadinejad are not about a nuclear weapon but are about peaceful intended enrichment. He also has statements that he notified the IAEA about this. While all of these facts are obvious, international media are constantly busy with Iran, while there are many other issues that need to be talked about,” Erdoğan said.
“We are completely against nuclear weapons in the Middle East. There is a country in the Middle East that possesses nuclear weapon: Israel. There is a difference, though; Israel is not a member of the IAEA, while Iran is. Moreover, phosphorus bombs were used in Gaza. What is this? A weapon of mass destruction,” Erdoğan said, referring to the Israeli army's deadly offensive in Gaza last December, leaving more than 1,300 people dead.
“These issues are never brought to the table, and this personally annoys me as a person who is in an office [that carries with it] responsibility,” Erdoğan said. “That is to say, we need to be fairer. We have to act honestly if we want global peace,” he added.
Turkey wants UN body to discuss Gaza ‘war crimes’
Erdoğan also said on Saturday that Turkey would push the Security Council to discuss a report by UN investigators accusing Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes in the Gaza war. “We will definitely take the position to discuss this issue on the Security Council,” Erdoğan told reporters.
A UN fact-finding mission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone issued a report last week that said both the Israeli army and Palestinian militants had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, during the December-January war in the Gaza Strip. The report urged the Security Council to refer the allegations to the International Criminal Court in The Hague if either Israel or Palestinian authorities failed to investigate and prosecute those suspected of the crimes within six months.
Erdoğan said there should be “accountability” for anyone guilty of war crimes in Gaza. “We're in favor of opening discussions on the Goldstone report, and whoever is the guilty party, they should be identified and face the necessary sanctions,” he said.
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