The rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran have led to renewed attention on Turkey's diplomatic role, with Ankara being viewed as a potential mediator between Washington and Tehran.

Since the tensions between the U.S. and Iran increase over the recent developments, some media outlets highlighted Türkiye’s growing diplomatic role, pointing to its potential mediation between Washington and Iran. U.S.-based Axios described Türkiye as a “leading mediator” between the United States and Iran, noting Ankara’s key role in Gaza and Syria as well as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and U.S. President Donald Trump’s close contacts, The Caspian Post reports, citing Turkish media.

Iran’s foreign minister traveled to Türkiye last week as Ankara intensified diplomatic efforts to mediate between Tehran and Washington, after Trump appeared to scale back warnings of an imminent military strike against Iran.

Tehran and Washington have been trading warnings since Trump threatened military action over a deadly crackdown on protests that erupted in late December over economic grievances and peaked on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9.

Trump said on Thursday he planned to speak with Iran, even as the U.S. sent another warship to the Middle East and the Pentagon chief said the military would be ready to carry out whatever the president decided.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan reiterated that Ankara opposes any military intervention against Iran and supports a peaceful, internal resolution of the country's issues by its own people.

"We have told our counterparts at every opportunity that we are against a military intervention targeting Iran," Fidan said.

"We hope that Iran's internal issues will be resolved peacefully by the Iranian people without any external intervention," he said.

Ömer Çelik, deputy chair and spokesperson for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), told reporters in the southern city of Osmaniye last week that President Erdoğan had a resolute will to that extent.

“Any foreign intervention in Iran will have worse consequences. Carrying out military attacks against leaders and institutions of a country will definitely have consequences,” he warned.

“Türkiye is right for the role of a reliable mediator. Our president has will. We hope that this issue will be resolved before heading into the said consequences,” he added.

Lifting Sanctions

After five rounds of talks that have stalled since May 2023, several hard-to-bridge issues remained between Tehran and Washington, ‍including Iran's insistence on maintaining ‍uranium enrichment on its soil and refusal to ship abroad its entire existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Since the U.S. strikes on Iran's ‍three nuclear sites in June, Tehran says its uranium enrichment work has stopped. Western countries fear Iran's uranium enrichment could yield material for a warhead. Iran says its nuclear programme is only for electricity generation and other civilian uses.

The Iranian sources said Tehran could ‌ship its highly enriched uranium abroad and pause enrichment in a deal that should also include lifting economic sanctions.

A senior Iranian official and a Western diplomat told Reuters that U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi could meet in Türkiye in the coming days.

The New York Times reported that Araghchi said there would be no direct negotiations with the United States unless U.S. threats came to an end. The newspaper said Türkiye has taken on a mediating role due to its continued diplomatic engagement with Iran and President Erdoğan’s close contacts with President Trump.

Israeli media have also assessed that Türkiye is playing an active role in mediation efforts, saying that the close ties between Erdoğan and Trump have increased Ankara’s diplomatic influence.