Iran high on Turkey’s foreign policy agenda: envoy
Among the neighboring countries, the Islamic Republic has been the “most cooperative”, Turkoglu told the Mehr News Agency.
Asked about the influence of Turkey-Israel relations on Ankara’s ties with Tehran, Turkoglu stated that there is no relation between Iran-Turkey ties and Israel.
“Iran and Turkey’s relations are almost 1000 years old and their borders have remained unchanged for about 400 years,” he added.
Security of neighboring countries is very important to Ankara, the envoy underlined. No race for nuclear energy
Turkey faces a scarcity of natural resources so it is willing to expand its energy resources and one of the options is to produce electricity through nuclear energy, Turkoglu noted.
“Legal use of nuclear energy is every country’s right” the Turkish envoy pointed out.
However, he said the region should be free from weapons of mass destruction.
Israel is the only country in the region which is widely believed to have about 200 nuclear warheads. In a recent interview with a German TV, its Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tacitly said that Tel Aviv has nuclear weapons.
The ambassador rejected the view that there is a competition between regional countries to develop nuclear energy for civilian uses.
“In my view it should not be interpreted as a race,” the diplomat noted.
The six Arab countries bordering the Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, and Oman - have decided to construct a joint nuclear facility to produce nuclear energy and they have started talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency for the purpose.