US Vice President Joe Biden has urged Turkey to impose new sanctions against Iran and praised Ankara for its role in pressuring Syria to stop its bloody crackdown on protesters. Biden's comments published Friday in the Turkish daily Hurriyet raise further pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
A top UN human rights official warned Thursday that Syria has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead and an increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army. Assad, who is trying to defeat an 8-month-old revolt challenging his rule, faces widespread international condemnation at the growing death toll, with Turkey, a major critic of the autocratic leader's actions, announcing a new set of economic sanctions against his regime earlier this week.
"We look forward to the broadening of international sanctions as a means to bring about change in Syria," Hurriyet and its English-language sister paper quoted Biden as saying in remarks emailed to them in advance of his visit to Turkey. He also urged Ankara to adopt further sanctions against Iran, which the West suspects is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
On Friday, Biden met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek in Ankara. On Saturday, Biden is scheduled to visit Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is recovering from a surgery at his Istanbul home, US officials said. Biden also said that the United States "will continue to work with Turkey on pursuing shared interests in the Middle East and North Africa."
"We continue to support a diplomatic solution to our concerns with Iran," Biden said. "However, we also believe that putting pressure on Iran's leadership is necessary to secure a negotiated settlement and that is why we encourage our partners, including Turkey, to take steps to impose new sanctions on Iran."
An Iranian general said Saturday that Tehran would target Nato's early warning radar in Turkey, if the US or Israel attacks the Islamic Republic after an International Atomic Energy Agency report said for the first time that Tehran is suspected of conducting secret experiments with the sole purpose of developing nuclear arms.
Ankara agreed to host the radar in September as part of Nato's missile defence system, which is capable of countering ballistic missile threats from its neighbour. Turkey insists the shield doesn't target a specific country, but Tehran says the radar is meant to protect Israel from Iranian missile attacks if a war breaks out with the Jewish state.
The US and its Western allies also suspect Iran of trying to produce atomic weapons, and Israel, which views Tehran as an existential threat, has warned of a possible strike on Iran's nuclear program.
Biden was also expected to encourage Turkey to repair ties with its former close ally Israel. As a long-serving member of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Biden cemented his reputation as an unyielding supporter of Israel, winning the respect of many in the Jewish community. Gul said after his talks with Biden that co-operation between the countries against Kurdish rebels "will continue more strongly." Biden said the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by the end of December would not leave "chaos behind."