00:00Professor Maziar Qiyabi is director of the Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies at Exeter University in the UK.
00:08Erdogan has in the past used quite a strong rhetoric.
00:12I don't think this is going to lead to any practical steps,
00:16but it means that there is a certain discontent among a variety of Muslim-majority countries
00:22with what's happening in the context of repeated Israeli attacks
00:28against countries in the Middle East, starting from, of course, the question of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and now Iran.
00:36Erdogan is posturing himself as a leader of the Islamic world, and he's expressing solidarity with Iran.
00:44I don't think this is going to lead to any practical change on the ground,
00:50Turkey being a NATO country and an ally of Western countries, which are on the side of Israel.
00:56So, lots of complex relationships in this region.
01:00What role are regional powers like Turkey, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, playing in this complex?
01:07I think what is happening at the moment is that Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia
01:12are probably liaising with European and American partners
01:15trying to persuade Donald Trump and the U.S. establishment overall
01:20to put pressure on Israel.
01:24Pressure on Israel has systematically failed on Iran, but even before that on the question of Palestine.
01:32But remains probably the only way out that we have from a current escalatory moment.
01:40So, countries such as Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, which enjoy a very important strategic relationship
01:47with Europe and the United States, both economically and as well as in terms of military and strategic partnership,
01:54do not want to see another war.
01:57And this war, the war with Iran, might be the biggest that the region has seen
02:02since the 2003 Iraq invasion, and probably bigger than that,
02:08given that Iran is a much bigger country, better armed with partners globally,
02:13although not strategic allies, which are Russia and China.
02:17We've also had, haven't we, these talks between Iran's foreign minister
02:21and some of his European counterparts, those talks happening in Geneva.
02:25Do you see any realistic path back to talks between Iran and the West in the near term?
02:33So, I think pursuing diplomacy remains one of the options that Iran has
02:39in the absence of massive military capacity to retaliate against Israel.
02:46So, Iran was attacked on eight days ago and pursued a response to Israel,
02:53but this response, to be credible, needs to be very strong.
02:58And in the absence of an adequately strong response,
03:02diplomacy with whoever is willing to participate, in this case Europeans,
03:06is seen as a potential, you know, step towards a solution.
03:12I mean, to what extent European partners can persuade, again, or put pressure on Israel,
03:17I remain very doubtful about it.
03:19I mean, from the very beginning of this war, about eight, nine days ago now,
03:24European countries sided with Israel immediately by saying that Israel has the right to defend itself,
03:31that mantra that we've heard over and over over the past two years.
03:35The fact being that, according to all observers, that Israel acted preventively.
03:43So, that means that there was no attack by Iran towards Israel,
03:47but it was an Israeli attack to fundamentally take out Iran's nuclear program
03:54and the alleged weaponization program.
03:56But it seems, from what we are observing now on the ground and the scope and depth of Israeli intervention,
04:04this is occurring at the infrastructural level, at the industrial level, at the logistical level,
04:10as well as taking out scientists and military commanders.
04:15So, it seems that Israel's war objectives were not, as stated, the nuclear program on its own,
04:24but Iran's power projection overall in the region.
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