Iranian president's two-day lobbying visit ends in disappointment as Istanbul rejects 1.87bn deal Turkey delivered a humiliating snub to Iran's visiting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, yesterday by backing out of a lucrative energy deal under pressure from the US government, which feared it would enhance Iranian nuclear ambitions.
Signing the £1.87bn agreement to provide Turkey with Iranian natural gas - on which memoranda of understanding had already been agreed - was to have been the crowning achievement of Ahmadinejad's two-day visit to Istanbul, which Turkish officials had agreed to after intense Iranian lobbying. Iran is Turkey's second-biggest energy supplier after Russia and has been seeking to woo Turkish investment in its South Pars gas fields.
But as Ahmadinejad met his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gül, at Ciragan Palace in Istanbul, it emerged that US intervention had effectively torpedoed a deal.
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