Thursday, Jan 12, 2012

ANKARA (AFP)--Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will visit Russia and the United States in the coming weeks for talks on Iran's controversial nuclear programme and the Syrian crisis, official sources said Thursday.

Davutoglu will fly to Russia on January 25 and is expected to go to the United States in early February, foreign ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said.

Iran's disputed nuclear drive which the West suspects is aimed at making bombs as well as the delicate situation in neighboring Syria will figure high on the agenda of the talks, diplomatic sources told AFP.

In an interview published Thursday, Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said the current tension over Syria was linked to the Iran issue.

He said NATO members and some Arab states of the Gulf, acting in line with the scenario seen in Libya, intended to turn the current interference with Syrian affairs into a "direct military intervention."

In this instance, the official said in the interview with the Russian daily Kommersant, the main strikes will be supplied "possibly by neighboring Turkey."

Washington and Ankara may already be working on plans for a no-fly zone to enable armed Syrian rebel units to build up, he said.

But ministry spokesman Unal declined to comment on the report, only saying Turkey's stance regarding Syria was clear.

Turkey, which shares a 910-kilometer border with Syria, has stepped up criticism of President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on opposition protests, which has claimed more than 5,000 lives since mid-March, according to U.N. estimates.

Ankara said it opposed any foreign intervention in Syria.

Davutoglu's next stop will be Brussels where he will take part in discussions of E.U. foreign ministers on events in Syria and brief his counterparts about the substance of his trip to Iran earlier this month.

At the January 23 meeting, European Union foreign ministers are expected to decide on new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear drive.

Turkey has repeatedly said it is only bound by U.N. Security Council sanctions, adding it favors a settlement to the nuclear dispute through diplomatic means.

On January 19, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi will hold discussions in Turkey.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-01-12 1601GMT