Turkey hopeful US will extend waiver on Iran sanctions
Turkey has voiced hope that the United States will extend an exemption in sanctions to allow it to keep buying oil from Iran, despite tensions.
Talking to media in Washington, the spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ibrahim Kalin said that the Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak met President Donald Trump at the White House and discussed the range of disagreements including Ankara's major weapons purchase from Russia.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif started a trip to Turkey as part of Tehran’s regular political talks with Ankara. Heading a ranking diplomatic delegation, Zarif left Damascus for meetings with top Turkish officials.
The meetings during the tour -part of the routine political negotiations and coordination with Syria and Turkey- will focus on the major issues in the bilateral relations, including the agreements agreed upon by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Syrian and Turkish counterparts.
The top Iranian diplomat’s visit is also aimed at the coordination of policies on the regional and international developments in order to ensure peace and stability in the region.
Iran and Turkey, together with Russia, are the guarantors of a ceasefire in Syria which has been brokered after several rounds of peace talks, known as the Astana process.
Since March 2011, fighting in Syria has killed an estimated 465,000 people, injured more than one million, and forced about 12 million people - or half the country's pre-war population - from their homes.
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