Is what Hakan Fidan says about the agreement with Iran on Syria true?
While Turkey’s foreign minister has claimed that his country had convinced Iran and Russia not to intervene militarily during the Syrian rebel offensive that led to the fall of the Assad government, news reaching the Tehran Times newspaper shows that this claim is not consistent with what was agreed in Doha.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in an interview yesterday: “The most important thing we had to do was talk to the Russians and Iranians to make sure that they did not enter the equation (in Syria) with military force. We talked to the Russians and Iranians and they understood the issue.”
Tehran Times has obtained new news from its sources about the negotiations and agreement last week in Doha, which refutes the Turkish foreign minister’s claim.
Tehran Times information indicates that it was agreed in Doha that the Syrian issue would be resolved politically and that the Assad government and the armed opposition would enter into talks. This agreement was signed by Iranian Foreign Minister Araqchi, Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, but the course of events on the ground in Syria on Sunday, December 8, showed that Turkey was not adhering to what it had signed.