Saturday, October 8, 2011

Gen. Safavi Harshly Criticizes Turkey

Maj. Gen. Yahya Safavi, senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader on military affairs and former IRGC commander, has harshly criticized Turkish foreign policy, which he said was under the influence of Israel and the US.

In remarks carried by Kayhan and other major Iranian media, Gen. Safavi accused Turkey of deliberately creating tensions in Syria at the behest of the US and Israel. He also said that Turkey’s agreement with the US for deploying NATO missile defense system on its soil was a move against Iran and Russia. Safavi also criticized Turkish support for the establishment of a secular government in Egypt.

Turkey's increasingly assertive Middle Eastern policy, its stable and highly popular government and its phenomenal economic growth in a region beset by recession and crisis, has made Iran increasingly apprehensive of the growing Turkish influence in the region. Although other Iranian politicians have also expressed similar criticism of Turkey, but the harsh comments coming from an influential IRGC senior officer and a person so close to Ayatollah Khamanei show the degree of that apprehension at the highest leadership circles in Tehran.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The poster stated:

"Turkey's increasingly assertive Middle Eastern policy, its stable and highly popular government and its phenomenal economic growth in a region beset by recession and crisis.."

I believe these are the poster's personal opinion which ideally should be added under "Editor's note"

In any case I do not agree with this assesment. Turkey is a very weak country, economically and politically. It has been knocking on EU door for many years and it has been rejected. It may fair better compared to Arabs (mostly culturally backward anyway) and Iran (kept backward by a devious regime). However, in general Iran and Turkey are on par when it comes to corruption and shayadi!.

Turkey's economy is kep alive by money pumped by Germans and to some extent by US. Without these two sources, it will be worse than many other Muslim countries.

Anonymous said...

----"Turkey's economy is kep alive by money pumped by Germans and to some extent by US. Without these two sources, it will be worse than many other Muslim countries."----

what a load of horse manure.


name a single Muslim country that can match Turkey's GDP?

name a single Muslim country other than Qatar that can match Turkey's annual percentage increase in industrial production?


name a single Muslim country that can match Turkey's GDP?

Anonymous said...

Comparing Turkey with Iran economically is like comparing apples and oranges..

One is under massive sanctions and the other is not.

Even under sanctions, Iran's doing pretty well compared with Turkey who pretty much gets all she needs from outside with a made in Turkey label on it..

Anon 11:34 PM..Maybe you can go live in Turkey and see how Islamic it has become. I live there and know what I'm talking about. Turkey cannot survive under the same sanctions Iran's under.Simple...

Anonymous said...

====Turkey cannot survive under the same sanctions Iran's under.=====


neither can Iran

Anonymous said...

----Maybe you can go live in Turkey and see how Islamic it has become. ----

No thanks, I don't think that I would be interested in living in Turkey. I'm not a big fan of Erdogan and I agree that Turkey is moving away from secularism and toward allowing religion in places where it doesn't belong.

That doesn't have anything to do with the size and state of Turkey's economy and only serves to make more ludicrous the claim that Turkey's economy is being propped up by the US

Anonymous said...

"He also said that Turkey’s agreement with the US for deploying NATO missile defense system on its soil was a move against Iran and Russia."

That's obvious. It's mainly an attempt to encircle Russia (but Iran as well) and start a new arms race.