Iran's Raisi to visit Turkey for delayed talks with Erdogan

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will pay an official one-day visit to Turkey on Wednesday for talks focused on the regional repercussions of the Israel-Hamas war.

Raisi will meet Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the capital Ankara, making a visit that was postponed twice – once in November and once earlier this month – because of spiraling tensions across the Middle East.

Iran's official news agency IRNA said Raisi would lead a "high-ranking political and economic delegation."

The visit comes amid growing fears about the regional repercussions of the war in Gaza, which Israel launched in reprisal for the unprecedented Oct. 7 attacks launched by Hamas which resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel,  according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

In response, Israel has carried out a relentless offensive that has killed at least 25,490 people in Gaza, around 70 percent of them women, children and adolescents, according to the health ministry in the territory.

Raisi vowed on Monday that Israel "will certainly pay" for the killing in Syria of a senior general with the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). 

The United States and Britain launched a second round of joint military strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Tuesday in reprisal to their repeated attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Erdogan condemned the first round of strikes early this month as "disproportionate," accusing Washington and London of trying to turn the Red Sea into a "bloodbath."