A senior Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) general has criticized Ankara for standing idly by and watching the situation unfold in the besieged Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobane.
Brigadier General Yadollah Javani said, "Despite repeated claims by Turkish officials that they will join the coalition against Islamic State (IS), their conduct demonstrates that their main objective and priority is to overthrow the Syrian government and (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad."
Strategic Mistake
"In my opinion, Turkish officials have made another strategic mistake; even regional analysts and experts believe Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government have committed repeated mistakes over the past years," he said.
Turkey, along with several other countries, "has played a leading role in creating IS. Ankara trained IS terrorists and has even coordinated their activities and treated their injured members," the Mehr news agency quoted him as saying on Sunday.
Fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish fighters defending Kobane continues, with more than 500 people reported dead in a month of conflict.
Turkey, which is a NATO member, has ruled out a ground operation on its own into Syria to save the city from IS terrorists.
Turkish government has closed its border to thousands of more refugees from Kobane and its border guards and army troops do not allow Kurdish fighters to cross the border into Syria and join the fight against IS militants.
Ankara fears that a direct military intervention and IS retreat would benefit the Syrian government and give it the upper hand to squeeze out the rebels. That is why it has proposed the establishment of a no-fly zone and a buffer zone within the Syrian territory across the border.
While Israel and some countries in the region are all supporting IS militants, Iran has remained on the side of Baghdad and Damascus and "Iranian officials have frequently stated that Tehran backs the governments in Iraq and Syria and has already provided them with military assistance in forms of advisory support and aid," the general pointed out.
Action to Secure Border
On the recent terrorist operations in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, Javani said Tehran respects the sovereignty of Pakistan; however, if such incidents continue and the Pakistani government and intelligence services be unable to secure the border, Iran will take matters into its own hand and act unilaterally to root out the "the sources of insecurity" and "threats" inside Pakistan.
The leaders of the terrorist groups operating in the province are well aware that by taking action against Iran, getting close to Iranian borders, or carrying out acts of sabotage inside Iranian territory, they "will shoot themselves in the foot", the top commander noted.
Iranian officials have criticized neighboring Pakistan for not doing enough to prevent terrorist groups from using its soil as an operation base against Iran. Sistan and Baluchestan has seen a spate of terrorist attacks in recent years with gunmen crossing the porous border with Pakistan.
In recent days, a number of Iranian police personnel lost their lives in separate terrorist attacks near the Iranian-Pakistani border.
