Iran-Turkey Ties Model for Regional Peace & Development

By: Kayhan Int’l 

Iran and Turkey may agree differ on certain issues, but the issued on which they agree far exceed the points of trivial difference, and this augurs good for bilateral ties bilateral ties between the two mature Muslim neighbours sharing a myriad of commonalities as well as for the region and the whole Islamic Ummah.

Last Thursday’s summit between President Hassan Rouhani and his host Rajab Tayyeb Erdoghan as part of the 5th Session of the High Council of Iran-Turkey Strategic Relationship, underscored these points and should be considered a slap on the face of the US, which has a black, bleak and bloodied record of meddling in West Asia.

We are not concerned here with the sanctions the Don Quixote in the White House has illegally imposed on Iran, neither with the US decision to end the illegal presence of its troops in Syria, nor with the American Senate’s vote to end support for Saudi state terrorism in Yemen.

For us what matters most is the importance of Iran’s principled policies to safeguard national and Islamic interests as well as the peace and stability of the whole region.

Tehran’s wisdom, whether in Syria and Lebanon, or whether Palestine and Yemen, is indeed paying rich dividends.

Whatever the Islamic Republic has done was and is doing, is to the benefit of the people of the said countries, and this reality has finally been understood by Turkey, whose president agreed with his Iranian counterpart and stressed that neither the American meddling in the region is welcome (including Washington’s roguish action in moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas – Jerusalem), nor the legitimacy of Trump’s economic sanctions against Iran.

The two countries thus intend to increase the volume of their trade ties to as much as 30 billion dollars per year, without regard for US threats and pressures.

This was evident in Dr. Rouhani’s talks in Ankara where he said: "Iran is capable of supplying energy to Turkey in the long run,” adding that solidifying ties between the two countries is of vital importance to the whole region in view of the fact that Iran and Turkey serve as a bridge connecting Asia with European
The stage is now set for proper coordination and cooperation, as was shown last week during the foreign ministerial meet of Iran, Turkey and Russia, for resolving the crisis in Syria.

The Tehran-Ankara model of cooperation should serve as a pattern for promotion of ties among the other countries of the region, which has into turmoil because of the mischief of the unholy trinity – Saudi Arabia, the US, and the illegal Zionist regime.

To be brief, the region needs major steps by mature regional leaders in order to salvage from the harm done by reactionary regimes led by murderous maniacs that do not represent the people they rule and despite their kowtowing to the West, are merely looked upon as mere milk-giving cows worth nothing once their milk runs dry.

World must arrive at consensus to counter sanctions policy

The increased use of sanctions as a restricting foreign policy tool by certain countries, particularly the US, comes as such approaches can have tremendous negative strategic, security and economic impacts on the entire world.

So far, Donald Trump has at least added 11 states to the list of the countries sanctioned by the US. These countries are Iran, Turkey, Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Libya and Colombia. Although, at first glance, such moves may look a little bit repetitious, by taking a deeper look at them one can see the approaches and behavioral patterns behind them that can seriously leave negative impacts on global strategic, security and economic sectors.

The issue has become enormously important to the extent that, addressing a number of Iranian ambassadors and economic actors in Tehran in late July, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US is “addicted to sanctions”.

He added, "The history of US foreign relations shows that this country has imposed the most sanctions on the majority of countries."

Using sanctions as an instrument to restrict other countries has since long become US main foreign policy tool. Adoption of such an approach in US foreign policy is an outcome of Washington’s understanding of and attitude toward other countries’ higher international status as it sees sanctions as a barrier to others’ achievements that are beyond the extent it desires and entry into the fields it does not want them to.

Like its predecessors, the Trump administration has also used, and is still using, sanctions to prevent other states from achieving their long-term and strategic foreign policy objectives.

The incumbent US government is pursuing this approach so seriously and using it across the world so extensively that, at times, it adopts the policy against other world powers and, even, some of its allies. A cursory glance at the long list of US sanctions against other countries show that, on different pretexts, Washington has imposed sanctions against Russia and, even, its NATO ally Turkey.

Aiming to change Russia’s approach to international developments, US officials since 2011 have unveiled 54 sanctions package against the country.

On Wednesday, the US Department of State imposed a new round of sanctions against Russia, to take effect in less than two weeks, on the pretext of Russians’ involvement in the case pertaining to the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in March.

In addition, following the surfacing of tension in relations between Ankara and Washington over the continued detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson, the two states, in retaliatory moves, sanctioned each other’s ministers of justice and interior which in the end has led to a trade war between them.

In its latest move, the Trump administration doubled the tariffs on US imports of Turkey’s steel and aluminum to exacerbate the tension between the two countries.

The use of sanctions policy by countries in their foreign relations has increased to the extent that even Saudi Arabia, on August 5, recalled its ambassador from Canada, expelled the country’s ambassador in Riyadh and froze all new business and investment transactions with the North American country, after the government in Ottawa expressed concern over recent arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in the kingdom.

Although in different periods, some European and East Asian states imposed sanctions on other countries, basically, it has been the US that has used the sanctions tool and language the most in diverse periods and with different purposes.

During the past decade, the country has used a wide variety of methods to impose sanctions on different countries including sanctioning other states’ distinguished individuals, foreign trade and banking sector.

US financial sanctions are among the country’s most important restricting tools imposed mostly through passing laws and issuing executive orders.

Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in cooperation and consultation with the US Department of State, is responsible for enforcing these sanctions.

US sanctions operate mainly by impeding capital and money transfer to and from a country and are aimed at restricting those states whose interests are not in accord with those of Washington.

Moreover, a large number of US sanctions are aimed at weakening the economies of the countries they target and, thus, increasing poverty and reducing the level of public welfare in those states.

Given the world’s prevailing circumstances and atmosphere created by Trumpist policies and the increased adoption of retaliatory measures as a consequence of the trade war launched by the US, a strategic consensus is required among the countries to counter the policy of sanctions.

Thus, in addition to making use of measures such as activating blocking statutes in the face of US unilateral sanctions, international economic systems are required to go beyond the present economic arrangements and work toward a solution to replace the present systems for transferring financial resources and making payments with new ones.

Today, the world is required to, once again, reflect on the following question: Why there is only one country that uses sanctions as tool to make political changes in other states, and that is the US?