Iran's foreign minister checks in with Ankara as Turkey courts Tehran's foes

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was scheduled to be received by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara today, part of an effort to manage growing tensions between the prickly regional rivals.

Upon his arrival, Amir-Abdollahian said he would be discussing “comprehensive long-term cooperation” between Iran and Turkey with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu and Erdogan.

The Iranian diplomat's meeting with the Turkish president had not ended as of time of publication.

The visit comes just days after Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid was in Turkey, where he thanked Turkish leaders for foiling an alleged Iranian assassination plot against its citizens in Istanbul. Turkey detained eight members of an alleged Iranian thought to be conspiring to murder Israeli tourists and a former Israeli ambassador in apparent retaliation for ongoing killings of high-value Iranian targets by the Jewish state. Iran denied the allegations, saying they were “baseless.”