Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces General Mohammad Baqeri on August 16 met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli in Ankara.

On August 15, Baqeri held talks with his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar.

Baqeri’s Turkey visit is the first by an Iranian chief of staff since 1979.

The top Iranian general and Turkish leaders discussed a wide range of regional and bilateral issues, including the conflicts in Syria and Iraq as well as the Qatar crisis, officials said.

Ankara and Tehran have conflicting interests in Syria with Iran supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey backing anti-regime forces. But Turkey and Iran are siding with the Doha government in the diplomatic crisis that erupted in June when several Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, led by Saudi Arabia, blockaded Qatar.

Baqeri and Turkish officials also discussed the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) independence plans in northern Iraq and joint efforts to confront Kurdish separatists.

Ankara last week announced that it had begun constructing a wall along its border with Iran which the government says will stop smugglers and the infiltration of Kurdish militants.

Turkey and Iran agree that the KRG’s plans to hold an independence referendum in Iraq will only further destabilise the region. Despite objections from Ankara and Tehran, Iraq’s Kurds are determined to go ahead with the referendum on September 25.

Iran has been fighting against the PJAK, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984.