Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is flying to Washington for talks on Tuesday with his U.S. counterpart, Hillary Clinton, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to meet with President Barack Obama next month as the two NATO allies work to contain a deepening dispute over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program, Today’s Zaman reported.

The rift puts Turkish-U.S. ties at risk, which, in the words of Davutoglu, were in their “golden age” until quite recently. Turkey, working together with fellow UN Security Council member Brazil, managed on May 17 to get Iran agree to a deal almost identical to one proposed by the UN atomic watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and backed by the U.S. and other world powers only seven months ago.

But the U.S. swiftly dismissed the deal as nothing but a “ploy” for Iran to avoid sanctions.