Muslim solidarity with Iran: Raeisi to visit Ankara ‘in near future’

Iran and Turkey have agreed that President Ebrahim Raeisi will travel to Ankara soon after he cancelled his planned visit following terrorist bombings in Kerman on Wednesday.

The visit, due to begin on Thursday, was delayed after a telephone call with President Raeisi in which his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack and offered condolences and the two presidents called to act jointly in the "fight against terrorism".

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Adollahian Thursday night to “express condolences and solidarity of the government and people of Turkey with the government and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran” over the terrorist attack.

Amir-Abdollahian thanked high-ranking Turkish officials, including the president and the minister of foreign affairs, and emphasized diligent efforts of the Iranian authorities to “accurately identify the perpetrators and orderers of this barbaric and terrorist act”.

The two foreign ministers also agreed that the official visit by President Raeisi to the “friendly and brotherly neighbor Turkey” will go ahead in the near future.

Erdogan had first announced in November that “Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi is coming to us on the 28th of the month” to focus on forging a joint response to the Israeli invasion of Gaza, but the visit did not take place due to conflicting schedules of their foreign ministers.

Both Turkey and Iran oppose the illegal US presence in Syria and have strongly condemned the ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinians.

Late Thursday, Amir-Abdollahian took a call from his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mikdad who strongly condemned the terrorist bombings in Kerman and extended condolences to the families of the victims.

Mikdad stressed the need to hold the forces behind the crime responsible and make necessary coordination to uncover its perpetrators and for the world to get united against terrorism.

He also reiterated Syria’s “full solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran, as people and leadership, and with all families of the victims who met to commemorate human memory of martyrs of truth and justice, General Qassem Soleimani and Commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, late Abu al-Mahdi al-Muhandis” who were assassinated in a US drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3, 2020.

For his part, Amir-Abdollahian expressed his appreciation for the solidarity of the Syrian people with the Iranian people “as the two countries have agreement on the necessity of combating terrorism in every way and resisting the growing Zionist tendency to take revenge on the Palestinians and their achievements in confronting the Zionist attacks on Gaza”.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jillani also spoke to Amir-Abdollahian and “expressed deep condolences over deaths in the dastardly terrorist attack that took place yesterday in Kerman”, a foreign ministry statement said.

“On behalf of the Government and people of Pakistan, Foreign Minister expressed solidarity with the people of Iran at this moment of grief,” it said.

Jillani “termed terrorism as a common threat to both Pakistan and Iran which needs to be countered by effective measures”, it added.

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