President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan congratulated Iran’s newly-elected President Masoud Pezeshkian for his election victory.
A statement made by the Presidential Communications Directorate said Erdoğan called Pezeshkian to congratulate him. The two leaders discussed Türkiye-Iran relations, as well as regional and global developments.
Erdoğan told Pezeshkian that he believes bilateral relations between the two countries, based on deep-rooted historical ties, will further develop in the new era.
He also wished him success in his term.
Pezeshkian won a runoff election on Friday against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
The 69-year-old reformist secured more than 16 million votes, around 54%, with Jalili winning more than 13 million, roughly 44%, out of about 30 million votes cast.
The new president found wide coverage in Turkish media for his part-Turkic roots. His father is an Iranian Azerbaijani, while his mother hails from Iran’s Kurdish community.
Türkiye and Iran put away their hostilities in the 17th century and, since then, pursued close ties, regardless of regime changes, replacing an empire with a republic, etc. But culturally close ties occasionally strained over other conflicts in the region. More recently, Ankara and Tehran found themselves on opposing sides in the Syria civil war, with Tehran backing the Assad regime and Türkiye siding with the opposition. Yet, the situation never actually translated into an all-out conflict between the two neighbors while trade relations between Türkiye and Iran remained unaffected.
