Iranian Chief of Staff Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri has arrived in Ankara to hold talks with a number of high-ranking Turkish officials on cooperation in settling the crises in Syria and Iraq, local media reported Tuesday.



According to the Daily Sabah newspaper, which has close ties with the AKP government in Turkey, Bagheri, accompanied by Iran's military officials, is set to stay in Ankara until Friday.

The visit marks the first ever Iran-Turkey diplomatic contact of high-level military officials, representing the willingness of both parties to reach a common understanding on key security issues in Syria and Iraq despite certain differences in the approaches of the two countries to the situation, sources told the media outlet.



The parties will reportedly discuss the future of the majority Kurdish Syrian city of Afrin. Currently, the city is governed by an assembly established by its Kurdish and Arab residents, which Ankara considers to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). According to the sources, Iran and Turkey will discuss a handover of the city to Turkey if the latter takes concrete measures to make Syrian opposition groups withdraw from certain regions in the southern part of Syria.



The media outlet pointed out that Iran and Turkey shared a common position on the forthcoming independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, with both claiming that independence of the region may exacerbate the conflict in the Middle East. It is also worth mentioning that both countries have a significant Kurdish population of their own and any independence for Kurds in the vicinity could strengthen similar aspirations in the respective countries.