PARIS (Reuters)–Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has voiced skepticism over the effectiveness of any further sanctions against Iran in the dispute over its nuclear program, saying he still supported a diplomatic solution.
In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro published on Tuesday, Erdogan criticized countries pushing for another round of sanctions in the Security Council, of which Turkey is a non-permanent member.
“We consider that this question should be resolved diplomatically,” he said. “Sure, sanctions are an issue at the moment, but I don’t think that the ones being discussed can bring results.”
Erdogan is going to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday as part of a two-day trip to France.
The United States, Britain, France, and Germany expect to meet with Russia and China in New York this week to begin drafting a new round of sanctions.
Once the five permanent, veto-holding Security Council members, plus Germany, agree, they will present the proposal to the other 10 council members. Lebanon, Turkey and Brazil are likely to oppose the idea.
“Those who took the decision to apply (previous sanctions) were the first to violate them,” Erdogan said in the interview. “The French, the Germans, the English, the Americans and the Chinese. They are all involved and still manage to indirectly send their products to Iran.”
Iran rejects Western accusations that it is trying to make nuclear weapons and says the program is aimed at generating electricity for civilian use.
Erdogan said he had repeatedly told his “dear friend” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that there should be no nuclear arms in the region.
Iran is the second-biggest supplier of natural gas to Turkey, its neighbor, and Erdogan said their peaceful relations and trade ties must be taken into consideration in the talks.
As soon as Iran does develop nuclear weapons, which it will have soon, the Western world economies are in for a BIG hurt not in the form of a nuclear weapon blowing up in a metropolitan city, but rather an Iran that is energy independent via nuclear power while simultaneously wielding some of the largest fossil fuel and natural gas reserves in the world.
Nuclear energy will be used domestically, and the oil/gas will be exported, making Iran into a world economic superpower, because energy is something every state needs but only a few have in large quantity. Israel will also overnight become obsolete in terms of regional importance, this is what most western powers fear, which is an Iran that cannot be bullied militarily or economically the way it has been in the past 30 years.
Those concerned about nukes going off from Iran should instead worry about nuclear energy reactors big turned on and ushering in a new age for Iran as a global player. Of course Turks being the classic ten faced pigs that they are already showing their true colors. The West sponsored Turkey and supported to turn it from an apricot selling continental village to a local economic power only to see the Turks now tell them, “thanks for the help, now that we have all the weapons and technology we need from you guys, we are no Iran's side now since our 'muslim brothers' are about to wield nukes”.
In the end, Israel and the US here have been burned the most for all the years of turning a blind eye to Turkish accountability regarding the Armenians, Cyprus, and most recently the Kurds. Europe comes in a close second in the “got shafted by Turkey” factor, have to hand it to Turkey, for more than a quarter of a century they played a brilliant game in tricking their Western dupes.