(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - During a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu exchanged views on the latest developments in the Middle East and North Africa.
The top diplomats stated urgency that the Bahrain crisis should be solved as soon as possible with peaceful means. They pointed out that the presence of foreign troops in Bahrain is no solution to the spiraling conflict there.
The leader of Bahrain's opposition group al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, Sheikh Ali Salman, has welcomed dialogues that will lead to the establishment of an elected government.
He stressed that the presence of foreign forces in Bahrain will only complicate matters.
"We don't need the presence of foreign troops in Bahrain. We need a political solution. We need reconciliation and not attac ks. We would like to solve our problem as an internal one. We call on Saudi Arabia to pull its forces out of Bahrain to let chances of finding a solution arise," Sheikh Ali Salman said.
The dispatch of troops from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies of Bahrain have highlighted concerns about the possible spillover of the crisis from Bahrain, where month-old protest rallies seek to break the Western-backed government's monopoly on power.
Saudi and other Arab rulers fear that any concession by Bahrain's rulers could embolden more protests against their own despotic rulers.
This is while the US military, which has its Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, has avoided describing the foreign troop intervention in the country as an invasion.
Bahraini demonstrators maintain that they will hold their ground until their demands for freedom, constitutional monarchy as well as a proportional voice in the government are met.
More than 26 people have so far been martyred and some 3,000 others have been injured as a result of government-authorized violence since anti-government protests began in Bahrain in mid-February.
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