Turkish FM set to attend inauguration of Iran’s president-elect
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) and President-elect Masoud Pezeshikan (R) attend the endorsement ceremony of the new president, Tehran, Iran, July 28, 2024. (EPA Photo)


The Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday in Tehran.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, formally endorsed Masoud Pezeshkian as the country's new president on Sunday, weeks after his victory in the presidential election.

The 69-year-old reformist lawmaker and cardiac surgeon defeated his conservative rival and former security body chief Saeed Jalili by more than 3 million votes in the second round of the presidential elections on July 5.

He will succeed Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash on May 19 in northwestern Iran, along with seven others.

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.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan phoned Pezeshkian earlier to congratulate him on his election victory and underline his faith in the momentum of development in ties between the two countries.

Since then, Türkiye and Iran have put away their hostilities in the 17th century and 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.