Erdoğan meets Iran’s Pezeshkian at the COP31 summit in Antalya and calls for talks to end the war with the US

The meeting

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday in Antalya, where both are attending the leaders’ summit of the UN climate conference COP31. The Presidency’s Communications Directorate said the two discussed relations between Turkey and Iran as well as regional and global matters.

According to the statement, Erdoğan said he hoped the conflict between Iran and the United States would end as soon as possible and that a lasting peace would follow. He said common ground had to be strengthened and diplomacy given a chance, and that it was important to set up a negotiating table without losing more time. Turkey, he added, would go on supporting efforts for peace together with other countries in the region.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Defence Minister Yaşar Güler and intelligence chief İbrahim Kalın were among those in the room, Sabah and Hürriyet reported.

Iran’s account

Euronews Türkçe, citing a statement from the Iranian president’s office carried by the state news agency IRNA, reported that the two leaders also discussed political, economic and trade ties. Raising the volume of trade and strengthening links between the two private sectors were named as priorities, and both stressed dialogue to prevent further escalation.

In his own speech at COP31 on Wednesday, Pezeshkian accused the United States and Israel of causing heavy environmental damage in their attacks on Iran. He claimed that strikes on fuel facilities at a large gas field in the south released about 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and strikes on fuel depots near Tehran about a million tonnes more. Euronews noted that these figures and accusations could not be independently verified.

A day of diplomacy

The meeting was one of several. Erdoğan also met the Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Félix Tshisekedi and said the partnership between the two countries was growing in trade, transport and the defence industry, and that Turkey supports the DRC’s territorial integrity.

According to Hürriyet, he also held talks with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Libya’s Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and Georgia’s President Mikheil Kavelashvili. Sabah added Somalia’s leader to the list.