Turkey, Iran to continue to enhance dialogue, official says

Turkey and Iran have agreed to continue "enhancing dialogue" a Foreign Ministry official told Anadolu Agency on Friday.

Ümit Yalçın's remarks came after talks with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Ibrahim Rahimpour in Ankara earlier this week.

"During the meeting, we agreed to continue enhancing our dialogue in the upcoming period via increasing mutual high-level contacts and visits," said Yalçın.

He said the countries agreed on improving economic and trade relations and benefiting from cooperation in the energy sector.

"Within the framework of our consultations, we exchanged views on regional issues especially the developments in Syria and Iraq.

"We touched upon the need to initiate a political process for stopping the bloodshed in Syria and implementing a real transition process," Yalcin said.

"In this respect, we expect Iran's regional policies to be constructive and we hope they [Iran] will understand how much it is [acting] in a wrong manner by cooperating with the Russian Federation and supporting the [Assad] regime," Yalçın added.

The Assad regime's supporters, chiefly Russia and Iran, have called for Assad to be part of the transition process.

Turkey, which has taken in a large number of Syrian refugees, is deeply opposed to Assad remaining in power, accusing his regime of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.

Turkey has welcomed the removal of sanctions against Iraq and experts have said that Turkey has acted judiciously when tensions increased between Iran and Saudi Arabia.