Surprise Turkey-Iran mini-summit, possible cease-fire

In a possible sign of diplomatic detente, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who back opposing sides in the Syrian civil war, met for an hour on the sidelines of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) summit in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on Tuesday. The two leaders agreed that ''the bloodshed in Syria must end,'' according to press reports. Relations between Turkey and Iran have grown deeply strained over Syria, where Iran has backed the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey has supported the opposition, while hosting over 100,000 Syrian refugees and suffering escalating border clashes this month. Their surprise meeting follows on yesterday's visit to Tehran by the UN and Arab League Syria envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, who proposed a cease-fire in honor of the Eid al-Adha feast day, which is celebrated by all Muslim sects, and which this year falls on October 26. Such a cease-fire may or may not stick given the numbers of al-Qaeda jihadists now involved on the ground, but Iran in turn proposed a transition plan for Syria, which would include a role for Assad. Meanwhile, in an effort to defuse escalating military tensions between Turkey and Syria, Russia called for a bilateral commission to oversee border incidents. Damascus has accepted, while Ankara professes to await a formal proposal. Also on Tuesday, in what is perhaps a significant change after the past days' sabre-rattling and Turkey's massing of troops on its Syria border, US ambassador to Ankara Francis Ricciardone commented that ''we do not see the possibility of a war.''