All but unnoticed by the wider world, Turkey [1]'s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan [2], held an unscheduled tête-à-tête last week with the US's most despised bogeyman, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [3] of Iran [4].

Given deep disagreements over Syria [5], and Iranian anger at Turkey's decision to allow the US to deploy missile defence systems on its soil, the meeting at a regional economic summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, was something of a surprise [6].

Neither man gave much away after the encounter, but officials said way... >>>