President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to meet visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday in the capital Ankara. The long-delayed visit makes Raisi Erdoğan’s first guest head of state this year. It comes at a time of tensions between the West and Iran over the latter’s stance on heating the Red Sea.
Like its neighbor Türkiye, Iran is outspoken on the Palestine-Israel conflict and backs the Houthis of Yemen. It reportedly deployed a warship at the Red Sea, at a time of tensions on the key shipping route. The Houthis have been targeting vessels in the Red Sea, those delivering goods to Israel in particular, in response to Israeli aggression targeting Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
Media outlets reported that the agenda of the Erdoğan-Raisi meeting will be the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza after Israel’s attacks and the delivery of aid to Gaza. Since October, Türkiye engaged in a diplomatic blitz to end the conflict, highlighting the need for a lasting solution favoring the rights of Palestinians. Ankara has proposed a guarantorship model to ensure a solution.
The two leaders previously discussed over the phone steps for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, with Erdoğan stressing the importance of the Muslim world adopting a “common stance against Israeli atrocities.”
Erdoğan and Raisi are also expected to discuss the Zangezur Corridor project, which will provide a direct land link between Türkiye’s main ally Azerbaijan’s exclave Nakhchivan and Türkiye. The corridor is a geopolitical link for Türkiye to Azerbaijan and beyond that, Central Asia. It will eliminate Nakhchivan’s dependence on Armenian control for transportation.
Raisi and Erdoğan will also discuss cooperation between the two countries, particularly in the field of energy.
Another topic the two leaders will discuss is the situation in Syria. Iran is a backer of the Assad regime Türkiye has fiercely criticized in the past. Ankara and Damascus last year announced an intent to normalize ties severed after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war but little progress made so far in talks between the two countries. Raisi and Erdoğan will discuss the restoration of stability in Syria in light of the Astana meetings that were sponsored by Türkiye, Russia and Iran, and cooperation on counterterrorism in Türkiye’s southeastern neighbor. Türkiye and Iran have usually had complicated ties, standing at loggerheads on a host of issues, primarily the 12-year Syrian civil war.
