Istanbul - The visit Tuesday of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Tehran is yet another sign of the rapidly improving relations between neighbours and regional powers Turkey and Iran. Over the last several years, the two countries have deepened their trade relations, as well as their cooperation in the areas of security and energy. But analysts suggest that Turkey and Iran's growing relations might be put to the test by Western expectations that Turkey take a harder line on Tehran's controversial nuclear programme.
"I can detect a perception in the US and Europe that Turkey is softer on Iran. They would like Turkey to have a tougher profile and a tougher stance vis-a-vis Iran," says Mustafa Kibaroglu, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation issues at Bilkent University in Ankara.
Relations between NATO member Turkey and Iran have improved dramatically in recent years, particularly since the arrival of the ruling liberal Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, which has pledged to pursue a regional foreign policy of "zero problems" with its neighbours.
Trade between the two countries, for example, hit 10 billion dollars in 2008, compared to a level of 1 billion dollars in 2000. Iran also supplies close to a third of Turkey's gas supply. Turkish officials, meanwhile, were among the first and only to congratulate Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad after his recent controversial reelection.
Turkey and Iran share a 499-kilometre border, and both Turkish and Iranian diplomats like to point out that the two Muslim neighbours have been at peace for centuries.
But Turkish analysts say that the peace that Ankara and Tehran have maintained for so long is based on a delicate balance of military power between the two countries, one that would be fundamentally disturbed if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons.
"The bottom line is that Turkey can't accept an Iran with nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapons-capable Iran or a nuclear-armed Iran is not in the interest of Turkey," says Kibaroglu.
"The continuation of Iran's nuclear programme for peaceful ends is a natural right, but it is impossible to support it if it concerns [the development] of weapons of mass destruction," Erdogan said in 2006.
In recent months, though, Erdogan has started taking what observers are criticizing as a "softer" stance on Iran's nuclear programme. In an interview in the Guardian published on October 26, Erdogan dismissed claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons as "gossip."
He also called criticism of Iran's nuclear programme by countries that themselves have nuclear weapons as "unfair," singling out
