What's behind the Turkey-Iran tango?
The coup attempt in Turkey appears to have set in motion momentum for possible cooperation between Turkey and Iran on Syria.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s surprise Aug. 12 visit to Turkey may always be remembered in Ankara, as well as in Tehran, for having opened a new chapter in regional cooperation between the two neighbors. The visit was the first by an Iranian official since the failed July 15 coup to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As such, it was part of Tehran's show of solidarity that began during the coup attempt, with phone calls from Zarif, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) external operations wing, the Quds Force.
“Zarif went to Ankara to discuss bilateral relations and Syria,” a senior Iranian official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, without providing specifics. To get an idea of what transpired in Zarif’s three-hour meeting with Erdogan and his talks with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Al-Monitor had to dig deeper, in several places.
