Turkey values Iran stability, says Erdogan

ANKARA: Turkey said on Wednesday President Hassan Rouhani’s response to days of protests across Iran was appropriate and that Ankara valued Iranian stability, in one of the first regional expressions of support for Tehran.

A source in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office said he discussed the weeklong unrest in Iran during a telephone call with Rouhani. The Iranian president told Erdogan he hoped the protests would be over “in a few days,” the source said.

Rouhani said on Sunday Iranians had the right to protest and criticize the authorities but their actions should not lead to violence or damage public property.

Erdogan told Rouhani “that he found his comments about not violating the law while exercising their right to peaceful protests was appropriate,” the source said.

Turkey’s ties with Iran expanded last year as Ankara’s relations with the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia — Tehran’s main international opponents — all frayed.

“Iran’s stability is important for us. We are against foreign interventions in Iran,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, in remarks quoted by television channel NTV.

“If the leadership is to change in Iran, the Iranian people will do this,” he said.

Broadcaster CNN Turk said Cavusoglu also echoed Rouhani’s suggestion that the US and Israel had provoked unrest.

“There are two people supporting the demonstrations in Iran: (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and (US President Donald) Trump,” it quoted Cavusoglu as saying.

An Iranian judicial official said that a European citizen was arrested in protests in Borujerd county in western Iran, but did not specify the nationality of the detainee.