Turkey’s Erdogan in Iran on Fence-Mending Mission

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a break from the turbulent politics at home to do some fence-mending with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The boisterous and recently beleaguered PM arrived in Tehran on Wednesday in what was billed as a mission to boost trade and energy-related issues, but most believe the main goal of the trip is to rebuild relations with Iran that were damaged over Erdogan’s vociferous criticism of Iranian-proxy and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. While the differences over Syria are not expected to go away, pundits see a common purpose in Turkey and Syria aligning against the growing threat from Al-Qa’ida. The United States favors a Turkey-Iran rapprochement, seeing it as a positive regional development.