Turkey Cautioned Against US Hype

Turkey should be wary of the US call for it to distance itself from an Iran-Russia alliance, a lawmaker said amid a joint peace effort initiated by Ankara, Moscow and Tehran to settle the seven-year-long deadly conflict in Syria.

"We hope Turkish authorities would not fall for the bleak prospects of economic cooperation with the United States and not accede to the US demand," Ebrahim Rezaei said in a recent talk with ICANA.

"By abiding by the US policies, Turkey has suffered serious harm. This was clearly evident during the reign of Daesh [an Arabic acronym for the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group]."

Rezaei was commenting on last week's remarks by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that western countries can offer Turkey more benefits than Russia and Iran.

"Iran and Russia cannot offer the Turkish people the economic and political benefits that membership in the western community of nations can provide," Tillerson said last Tuesday without specifying what those benefits might be, Turkey's Anadolu Agency reported.

His remarks at the Wilson Center think tank were delivered days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi to discuss the conflict in Syria.

Turkey, Russia and Iran are guarantor countries that brokered a ceasefire in Syria last December, which led to the Astana talks in Kazakhstan that run parallel to the UN-sponsored Geneva talks for peace in Syria.

Ankara was part of a western-backed regional alliance that provided backing for the insurgent groups fighting in Syria to dislodge President Bashar al-Assad, who enjoys the support of Tehran and Moscow.

The IS declared a "caliphate" after running over large swaths of Syria and Iraq in a surprise 2014 attack.

Last month, Iraqi and Syrian armies backed by Iranian advisors managed to flush out the IS militants from their last strongholds in the two Arab countries, marking the collapse of the terror group.

Washington provided backing for the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces who took control of the Kirkuk area and other areas claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurds after the IS attack and helped drive the hated terrorist group out of parts of Iraq.

The Turkish government was agitated by the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government's move to hold a controversial secession vote on Sept. 25, fearing separatism might spread to its own Kurdish population.