Senior MP:Turkey Excluded from List of Hosts for Iran-G5+1 Meeting

A senior Iranian legislator reiterated the close interaction between Tehran and Ankara on different political and international issues, but meantime said that Turkey has been excluded from the list of the possible hosts for the upcoming meeting between Iran and the world powers.

“It seems that the Islamic Republic no more considers Turkey as an option (for hosting the talks with the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany),” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Zohreh Elahian told FNA on Saturday.

She underlined that the decision was taken after Turkey recently hosted a conference against Syria, and also the negative positions taken by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Syria.

Elahian said that Iran expects Turkey, as a Muslim country, to take independent decisions since the Islamic Republic is eager to continue its good relations and interactions with Ankara.

In relevant remarks earlier this week, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi had also said that the conference held in Istanbul on developments in Syria served the interests of the Zionist regime of Israel and the West.

The Istanbul conference served the interests of the Zionist regime and promotion of civil and sectarian war in the region, Vahidi told Arabi-Press News website on Wednesday.

He criticized the participants in the conference for not condemning terrorist attacks in Syria and avoiding support for the reforms initiated by the Syrian government.