Iran's Raisi Expected in Türkiye for Delayed Gaza Talks

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was expected to fly to Türkiye on Wednesday for twice-delayed talks aimed at ironing out past differences and trying to halt the spread of the Israel-Hamas war.
Raisi's visit to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan comes with the war in Gaza starting to inflame tensions and escalate fighting across the Middle East, AFP reported on Wednesday.
The United States and Britain have stepped up joint airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen in response to their attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes.
Israel has repeatedly targeted Tehran-linked figures in Syria and appears to be on the brink of launching a full-scale war against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Iran and Pakistan last week exchanged strikes against "militant" and "terrorist" targets and Türkiye itself has stepped up attacks against Kurdish groups in Syria and Iran.
The rapid pace of the Middle East escalation forced Raisi to delay his visit to Ankara twice.
His planned talks in Ankara in early January were called off when twin blasts claimed by ISIS extremist group killed 89 people at the shrine of assassinated Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps general Qasem Soleimani.
A trip he had planned for November was canceled because of conflicting schedules of diplomats involved in consultations over the Gaza war.
'Liberators'
The turmoil engulfing the Middle East since Israel went to war in retaliation for Hamas's October 7 attack has added a new layer of complexity to Türkiye’s close but uneasy relationship with Iran.
Erdogan depicts Iran-backed Hamas as legitimately elected "liberators" and not the "terrorist" organization it has been proscribed as across the Western world.
He has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler for pursuing an offensive that has killed more than 25,000 people -- mostly women and children -- in Gaza, according to the enclave's Hamas-run health ministry.
Relentless Israeli attacks since October 7 have left much of the besieged Palestinian territory in ruins and starved of food.
But Erdogan had initially defended Israel's right to respond to the Hamas raids that resulted in the death of 1,140 people -- also mostly civilians -- according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Hamas is still believed to hold around 132 of the estimated 250 people the group took hostage in the worst attack in Israel's history.
Tensions over trade
Analysts note widespread anger in Iran's official and semi-official media about Türkiye’s continuing trade and diplomatic relations with Israel.
These differences add to existing tensions between the two regional powers in Syria -- where they supported opposing camps in the country's civil war -- and in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Relations between Türkiye and Iran have always been complex and multidimensional," Istanbul's Centre for Iranian Studies director Hakki Uygur told AFP.
"Türkiye has always been able to manage it, to somehow find a middle ground. I think a similar thing will happen now."
Iran's official IRNA news agency said Raisi will be leading a "high-ranking political and economic delegation" on his first official visit to Türkiye since his election in 2021.
Containing the conflict
Iran and Türkiye share a 535-kilometer (330-mile) border and a long history of both close economic relations and diplomatic feuds.
Türkiye backed rebel efforts to topple Iranian- and Russian-backed President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's civil war.
Iran grew increasingly anxious as Türkiye supplied arms to help Azerbaijan beat back Armenian separatists from the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in 2020 and then again last year.
Tehran fears that Baku's resurgence in the Caucasus region could feed the separatist ambitions of Iran's large ethnic Azerbaijani minority.
Analysts believe the Gaza war has helped put regional disputes on the back burner and force the two leaders to seek a joint approach to the Middle East.
"It is possible that Raisi and Erdogan might declare some symbolic measure about Palestine out of the meeting," said Clemson University professor Arash Azizi.
"But I think their focus will be mostly on how to contain the conflict and make sure it doesn't expand further, something that Ankara and Tehran both want."

President Joe Biden has approved provision of anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, a US official told Reuters, a step that could help slow Russian advances in its east, especially when used along with other munitions from the United States.
The United States expects Ukraine to use the mines in its own territory, though it has committed not to use them in areas populated with its own civilians, the official said. The Washington Post first reported the development.
The office of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian defence ministry, the Russian defence ministry and the Kremlin did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests to comment.
The United States has provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines throughout its war with Russia, but the addition of anti-personnel mines aims at blunting the advance of Russian ground troops, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The US mines differ from Russia's as they are "non-persistent," and become inert after a preset period, the official said. They require a battery to detonate, and will not explode once the battery runs out.
On Tuesday, Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike into Russian territory, taking advantage of newly granted permission from Biden's outgoing administration on the war's 1,000th day.
Moscow said the use of ATACMS, the longest-range missiles Washington has yet supplied to Ukraine, was a clear signal the West wanted to escalate the conflict.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks.
The move followed months of warnings to the West that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire US, British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine.

Iran's Raisi Expected in Türkiye for Delayed Gaza Talks