Iran’s Salehi to visit Turkey for Syria talks, top Khamenei aide in Damascus to meet Assad

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi is to pay a snap visit to Turkey late Tuesday for talks on the Syrian crisis and 48 Iranians kidnapped there.

The Iranian foreign minister wanted to visit Turkey “at his own request,” which was conveyed through diplomatic channels late Monday, a Turkish diplomat told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Salehi will hold talks with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara, with the Syria conflict topping the agenda, he added.

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 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s few allies.

The Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement quoted by the official news agency IRNA, that the situation of the pilgrims kidnapped in Damascus which Tehran blames on Syrian rebel forces fighting the regime’s loyalist troops would be discussed.

“Considering that the Free Syrian Army -- which claims to have abducted the Iranian pilgrims -- is backed by Turkey, the visit by the foreign minister aims to warn and remind the Ankara government of its responsibilities in this matter,” the ministry said.

Requesting assistance

The Iranians were taken hostage on Saturday as they travelled in a bus to the airport in Damascus. That was the single biggest abduction of Iranians since the start of the Syrian uprising in March last year.

Salehi telephoned his Turkish and Qatari counterparts, Davutoglu and Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir Al Thani, on Saturday to request their assistance

And Davutoglu responded by promising “to study the issue and to carry out efforts as in previous cases,” the Iranian media reported.

Tehran accuses both Ankara and Doha of arming the Syrian rebels.

In addition to taking in more than 45,000 Syrian refugees in several camps along its southern border provinces, Turkey is also providing sanctuary to members of the rebel forces made up of army defectors fighting the Assad regime.

But Turkey has repeatedly dismissed allegations that it is arming the rebels.

Salehi’s brief visit to Turkey comes ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s scheduled trip to Istanbul at the weekend.

On Tuesday, 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.

The upcoming summit of the Non-Aligned Movement which Tehran is hosting is also expected to be discussed by Salehi and Davutoglu.

Iran has invited the leaders of Russia, Turkey and the United Nations to the meeting on August 30-31 but Turkey has not yet given a response.

The NAM groups 120 countries which consider themselves not formally part of the world’s major power blocs.

Neither Russia nor Turkey are members, though Moscow has observer status.

Top aide to hold talks with Assad

Meanwhile Saeed Jalili, a top aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, arrived in Damascus on a surprise visit on Tuesday for talks with Assad, Iranian state television reported.

Jalili, the head of Iran’s supreme national security council, flew in from Beirut, where he held talks on Monday with Lebanese leaders.

He was to meet Assad within the hour. After the meeting, Jalili was to give a news conference in the Syrian capital, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said on its website.

In Beirut on Monday, Jalili issued a veiled warning to countries backing the Syrian rebels.

“Those who believe that, by developing insecurity in the countries of the region by sending arms and exporting terrorism, they are buying security for themselves are wrong,” he told Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, according to the official news agency IRNA.

“We believe that Syria’s friends must help to totally stop the violence, organize national dialogue and general elections in this country, and send humanitarian aid for the Syrian population,” Jalili was quoted as saying.