Turkey rebukes Iran's 'baseless statements' in poem row

Baseless statements of Iran, targeting Turkey and the Turkish president are not acceptable, said Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Dec. 12, according to diplomatic sources.

Çavuşoğlu in a phone talk with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the unfounded statements about Turkey and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said the sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

The sources said that during the conversation, the attitude of the Iranian side over the poem was discussed, noting that Çavuşoğlu said the poem Erdoğan read in his speech in Baku was about Karabakh and that the president during his speech did not mention Iran, not even implicitly.

While channels were open to convey views on the issue to Turkey, the baseless and heavy statements of Iran that targeted the Turkish president were "unacceptable", Çavuşoğlu stressed, according to the sources.

Reminding Turkey's support for the country during the most difficult periods when everyone turned their back on Iran, he said that forgetting this fact increased the disappointment over Iran's baseless statements.

'Unacceptable accusations'

Meanwhile, Turkish Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop on Dec. 12 condemned Iranian authorities over unfair accusations against the Turkish president for reading a poem during a ceremony in Azerbaijan.

"The unseemly attitude of some Iranian officials against our president, who always bravely defended the law against the embargo and isolation imposed on Iran, can never be accepted," Şentop, posted on Twitter.

Noting that the reaction Iran showed to Erdoğan, "they have not shown to those who imposed sanctions on their country".

"I strongly...