By AL ARABIYA
DUBAI
12/14/2011
Turkey’s Western-like secular political structure is not suitable or compatible for Middle Eastern countries in the post-Arab Spring era, Ali-Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said at a news conference.
Turkey’s model of “secular Islam” was a version of western liberal democracy and is unacceptable for countries that are going through what he said was an “Islamic awakening,” the Financial Times reported Velayati as saying on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, demanded an explanation from his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, about a threatening statement made by an Iranian lawmaker, state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
“It is Iran’s natural right to target the missile defense shield system in Turkey in case of an attack, and we will definitely resort to that,” Hussein Ibrahim, the vice president of the Iranian parliamentary national security and foreign policy panel, reportedly said in an interview with the Iranian daily Shargh on Sunday.
The U.S. and its NATO allies are building an anti-ballistic missile in the Black Sea region, including the installation of NATO radar systems in Turkey and Romania.
But Salehi, who met with Davutoğlu in Jeddah on the sidelines of a gathering on Syria organized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said he does not share these views and that they don’t reflect the official Iranian position.
Meanwhile, an Istanbul-based newspaper, Today’s Zaman, reported that Iran’s foreign ministry had given insurance to Turkey that the Islamic republic does not back such threats and that the threats do not reflect the ministry’s policy.
The Iranian officials also emphasized that Turkey should acknowledge statements only from officials in charge, including the Iranian president and the foreign ministry.
Iran and Turkey have close trade and economic relations, as both countries are members of the Economic Cooperation Organization. It is thought that the bilateral relations between the nations are increasing. In 2005, their trade increased to $4 billion from $1 billion in 2000.
But both countries, which have long enjoyed collegial relations, are now going through a rough patch, aggravated by the tightening of sanctions against Iran.
During a visit to Turkey, the U.S. vice president, Joe Biden, called on Ankara to impose new sanctions against Iran. Biden also hailed Turkey’s role in pressuring Syria to stop the bloody crackdown against protesters.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Iran’s supreme leader told students at a Tehran military college that Iran “will respond with full force” to any attack − or even any threat of military action.
“The enemies, especially America and its stooges and the Zionist regime, should know that it is not Iran’s custom to invade any country or nation. But it will respond with full force to any aggression or even threats in a way that will demolish the aggressors from within,” he said, according to a statement on his official website.
Khamenei’s forceful language followed threats last week from Israel that air strikes could be in the offing against Iran’s nuclear sites. The Israeli president, Shimon Peres, said last weekend that such action was becoming “more and more likely.”
