BREAKING NEWS

Iran says ties with Turkey should not be harmed

DUBAI - Iran said on Friday it had a strategic relationship with Turkey that should not be damaged by officials' remarks, a day after Turkey's prime minister said Tehran was insincere about proposing nuclear talks with world powers in Syria or Iraq.
Tensions between Turkey and Iran have risen after Turkey's vocal opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has close ties with Iran, and Istanbul hosting the Syrian opposition and international meetings of nations opposed to the Damascus government.
Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan said suggesting Damascus or Baghdad as a venue for the meeting was a "waste of time, it means it won't happen". He told the news conference Tehran was losing its international prestige because of its "lack of honesty".
"We should not allow comments by different officials in the two countries to harm the strategic relations between us," the official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying.