Istanbul meeting: Eight foreign ministers warn against new attack on Iran
Europeans and regional powers plan to meet regularly. Iranian President Pezeshkian travels to Moscow to see Putin next week.
Archive image · Photo: Necati Savaş / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Foreign ministers from four regional states and four European countries met in Istanbul on Friday in a new “R4 and E3” format, joined by Italy. Host Hakan Fidan of Turkey welcomed Prince Faisal bin Farhan (Saudi Arabia), Badr Abdelatty (Egypt) and Ishaq Dar (Pakistan) as well as Edward Miliband (Britain), Jean-Noël Barrot (France), Johann Wadephul (Germany) and Antonio Tajani (Italy). Topics included possible military action against Iran, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb, the Black Sea and the fallout from the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. “Nobody currently supports a new attack on Iran,” Fidan said, according to Daily Sabah. Renewed military action against Tehran would risk widening the conflict, he said.
Barrot called on both sides to “exercise the utmost restraint,” Asharq Al-Awsat reported, warning that a new escalation “would undoubtedly have very serious consequences for hydrocarbon prices.” Tajani said the problem cannot be solved from a purely military standpoint. The eight countries plan to continue their talks at regular intervals. Wadephul said Iran and the Houthis must end their attacks on shipping, Iran International reported. Separately, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that President Masoud Pezeshkian will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Oct. 27, on the sidelines of a gas exporters' summit.