Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoغلlu met today, Thursday, in Baghdad, Iraqi leaders in a diplomatic move to calm tensions in the region that almost led to a military confrontation between Iran and the United States after the assassination of the Quds Force commander Qasim Soleimani in a US raid in Iraq.
Gawishoglu, during an official visit, met the head of the Iraqi caretaker government, Adel Abdul Mahdi, then Iraqi President Barham Salih, in addition to his counterpart, Muhammad al-Hakim.
The head of the Iraqi caretaker government, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, stressed yesterday the need to work towards a truce and avoid escalation in the crisis between the United States and Iran.
During his meeting with the German and French ambassadors, he called for the necessity of all countries, especially the Europeans, to support Iraq, defuse the crisis and spare the world the scourge of war.
The Turkish Foreign Minister held telephone talks yesterday with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, hours after the Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched missile strikes at two Iraqi bases that included American forces.
Before the Iranian missile response to the assassination of Soleimani, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he called his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani and asked him to moderate the reaction, while criticizing the American targeting of the commander of the Quds Force.
The past few days before and after the Iranian missile strike witnessed extensive diplomatic contacts, including a visit by the Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman to the Iranian capital, to contain tension between Tehran and Washington, and to avoid dangerous escalation, while the Italian President visits Qatar on the twentieth of this month to discuss The repercussions of the killing of Soleimani.
European Council President Charles Michel said today that he called Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and asked him to return Iran to its obligations under the nuclear agreement, while British Foreign Secretary Dominic Rap called on Iran to refrain from any further military action.
For his part, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan instructed his country's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and the commander of the land forces, Qamar Javed Bajwa, to seek to reduce tension between Iran and the United States.
In a tweet posted today on Twitter, Khan announced that Minister Qureshi will meet his Iranian, American and Saudi counterparts, while Bajwa will meet military officials, and he said that his country will do what it takes for peace.
For his part, Pope Vatican Francisco today urged the United States and Iran to avoid escalation and the pursuit of dialogue and restraint, and said that the Iranian-American tensions run the risk of undermining the reconstruction of Iraq and the outbreak of wider conflict.