ANKARA: Turkish police had intelligence of a “threat” to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit to Turkey this week, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said yesterday.
Asked about heavy security for Ahmadinejad’s visit to Istanbul on Thursday and Friday, Gul said the measures were prompted by intelligence of a threat to the visiting leader which he did not specify.
“I was also upset” about traffic jams in the Turkish metropolis resulting from the heightened security, said Gul in televised remarks from the central city of Nevsehir.
“But the Istanbul police told me they had intelligence of a threat that they could not ignore and therefore they had to take those measures.” Police banned traffic on roads that Ahmadinejad used during his visit, leaving many local residents and tourists stranded, and causing some travelers to miss their flights.
Ahmadinejad apologized for the trouble his visit caused, but noted that security arrangements were decided by Turkish authorities that “might have been irked by the activities of terrorist Zionists.”
Also yesterday, Gul sent a reconciliatory message to neighboring Armenia, saying Turkey is “no enemy” to any country in its region, as he mulled a possible landmark trip to Yerevan.
The conflict between Georgia and Russia shows the need for “early measures to resolve frozen problems in the region and ... prevent instability in the future,” said Gul in Nevsehir.
“This is our understanding on all problems. We are no enemy to anyone in the region,” he said, reiterating a Turkish proposal to set up a regional forum for stability in the Caucasus.
Gul’s conciliatory remark came in response to a question on whether he would accept an invitation by Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian to go to Yerevan in September to watch a World Cup qualifying match between Turkey and Armenia.He replied he was still evaluating the invitation.
Earlier on Friday, Ahmadinejad said that Iran would launch its first satellite in the “near future.”
The president, concluding his two-day Turkey visit, told reporters that the satellite and the rocket carrying it have been developed by Iranian scientists but did not say when the launching would take place.
“This satellite, the rocket that would launch it, and the land station from which it would be launched are entirely made in Iran, by Iranian scientists and technicians,” he said.
