Iran’s president due in Turkey on Wednesday

Heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation, Raisi will leave Tehran for Ankara on Wednesday at the invitation of his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Turkish president will officially welcome his Iranian counterpart, and the two presidents are scheduled to hold a private meeting.

Raisi and Erdogan will co-chair the 8th meeting of the Iran-Turkey high-level cooperation council and then attend a joint press conference.

The two presidents also plan to participate in a joint meeting of both countries’ tradesmen and economic actors.

Raisi will also hold a meeting with Iranian nationals residing in Turkey.

The Iranian president canceled his planned visit to Turkey following a Daesh-claimed terrorist attack in the southeastern city of Kerman on January 3, during which 94 people lost their lives and 211 others sustained injuries.

Erdogan had first announced in November that “Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi 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.

In a phone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian on Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country is ready to host President Raisi in the near future after seeing the trip canceled twice for different reasons.

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