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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suddenly found himself reassessing his government's burgeoning ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran - and sooner than expected.
One of the reasons Turkey agreed to Iran's demands and voted against new UN Sanctions was because the Iranian government promised that it would continue to negotiate with the West. However, it did not take long for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to break his promise. Soon after the UN resolution was passed, the Iranian leader declared, through Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that all negotiations will be suspended for two months.
This has clearly angered the Turks, who may not be able to stand by Tehran for very much longer. And why should they? The U.S. government is already breathing down Erdogan's neck, and word is that the meeting between the two sides at last month's G20 summit in Canada was tense. Obama arrived late to the meeting, and there were no joint press statements or photographs taken together.
This, in addition to other reports that the U.S. canceled its participation at a recent regional security conference in Turkey a mere 12 hours before it started.
The Turkish government knew well in advance that its decision to back Iran in the UN would raise the ire of the Americans. However, they hoped that the merits of their relationship with Tehran would compensate for that and make such a policy worthwhile. Reality is proving otherwise. The Brazilians soon realized after sanctions passed that it wasn't worth their while to defend Iran's nuclear cause. The Turks, based on Washington's reaction and the fact that Tehran broke its promise of negotiations, could very well reach the same conclusion - and sooner than many expected.
This does not mean that Turkey is going to break relations with Tehran, nor does it mean that it will distance itself from Iran altogether. What it does mean is that Erdogan and his AKP party will reduce their support for Iran's cause in the UN. They will stop acting like Ali Khamenei's lawyer and defender in the West, because that's what Khamenei wanted from them all along, and he was prepared to pay handsomely for it with a cheap gas deal and lucrative contracts for Turkish companies.
Now that new sanctions are going to be imposed by the United Nations, as well as the U.S. and the EU, the Iranian government is going to find it harder to buy political support at the UN.
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