Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday he would discuss Iran's controversial nuclear program with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran next month, but urged caution over new sanctions.
He said any attempt to impose sanctions on Tehran's gas industry -- Iran has the world's second largest natural gas reserves -- would be especially problematic for its neighbor Turkey.
Erdogan was speaking to reporters after Western leaders on Friday accused Iran of hiding a nuclear plant it is building southwest of Tehran. U.S. President Barack Obama warned Iran it would face "sanctions that bite" if it did not come clean.
"By the end of next month I will be visiting Iran and I will talk about this (the Iranian nuclear program)," Erdogan said through an interpreter.
He added that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was expected to visit Iran on October 1 -- the same day an Iranian delegation meets the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany for talks on its nuclear program in Geneva.
Erdogan sounded a skeptical note on sanctions, saying they "won't bring about anything good for the people (of Iran). So I think we have to be careful."
Asked if Turkey would support fresh U.N. Security Council action against Iran, Erdogan said: "Without seeing what would be in the resolution, it's difficult to say. We would look at the text and we would make our contribution and then we would make a decision."
Turkey is currently a member of the 15-nation Security Council, which has already passed three rounds of sanctions on Iranian firms and individuals designed to induce Tehran to halt uranium enrichment aimed at producing nuclear fuel.
Erdogan said Turkey had told Iran it must be "transparent" with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
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