Iran and Turkey fail in bid for coordination in Syria

The most high-powered Iranian officials to visit Ankara since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution failed in their mission to coordinate withTurkey their policy and military operations in Syria. The delegation, which arrived Wednesday, was led by Iran’s Armed Forces Chief, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Baqeri, the head of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, Brig. Gen, Mohammad Pakpur, and Deputy Foreign Minister Ebrahim Rahimpour. The Iranians first met with Turkish military leaders, including Chief of Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, then President Tayyip Erdogan. In two days of negotiations, the two sides put together an intelligence sharing arrangement and decided to hold joint naval exercises. They also found common ground in a stand against the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum scheduled for Sept. 26.  DEBKAfile: Tehran and Ankara were already in agreement on all these points, but the Ankara talks this week failed to take them any further.