Iran: Turkey can help free pilgrims
Salehi says Ankara can play a key role because of its ‘links with rebels’
Turkey can play a “major role” in freeing 48 Iranian pilgrims abducted in Syria because of its links with the Syrian opposition, Iran’s foreign minister told reporters yesterday in Ankara.
Ali Akbar Salehi said he was in Turkey to follow the case of the pilgrims abducted over the weekend because “Turkey has links with the opposition in Syria, so we think Turkey can play a major role in freeing our pilgrims.”
His remarks came during a snap visit to Turkey for a meeting with his counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu.
The Iranians were taken hostage on Saturday as they travelled by bus to the airport in Damascus. It was the single biggest abduction of Iranians since the start of the Syrian uprising in March last year.
Salehi over the weekend telephoned his Turkish and Qatari counterparts, Davutoglu and Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasem Bin Jabr Al Thani, to request their help.
In addition to taking in more than 45,000 Syrian refugees in several camps along its southern border provinces, Turkey is alleged to be aiding members of the rebel forces fighting the regime of President Bashar Al Assad. But Turkey has repeatedly denied allegations that it is arming the rebels.
Turkey and Iran are at the opposite ends of the Syrian crisis. Ankara has been at the forefront of the international criticism against the Damascus regime’s deadly response to the popular uprising, while Tehran is one of Al Assad’s few allies.The 17-month uprising in Syria has strained ties between Ankara and Tehran.
Iran’s armed forces chief of staff General Hassan Firouzabadi on Monday accused neighbouring countries including Turkey of helping “the belligerent objectives of the Great Satan, the United States.”
“If they accept this method though, they should realise that after Syria it will be the turn of Turkey and other countries,” he said in a statement posted on the Sepahnews, the official Revolutionary Guards website.
Salehi’s brief visit to Turkey comes ahead of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s scheduled trip to Istanbul at the weekend.
Yesterday, Iran said that it was holding the United States responsible for the lives of its citizens taken hostage in Syria, following an unconfirmed report by a Syrian rebel group that three of them had been killed by shelling.