Turkey and Iran’s entente in Iraq
Ankara and Tehran appear to be cooperating against the Kurds in Iraq.
Earlier this week, there appeared to be a thaw in tensions between Iran and Turkey. After months of tense exchanges, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Istanbul to discuss “all aspects” of the Iranian-Turkish relationship with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu. After the meeting, the ministers announced plans to deepen trade ties, further cooperate in the Syrian peace process and reopen IranTurkey border crossings. These developments are part of a new Middle Eastern entente in the making.
Last year, Turkey launched Operation Claw against militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq, and just this week, it launched aerial and ground offensives, dubbed Operation ClawEagle and Operation Claw-Tiger, that involved the deployment of ground, artillery and air units to “neutralize” 500 PKK targets and set up a series of temporary bases in the region. In the past, Turkey has launched these types of counterterrorism operations alone. But this time, it had backup. And as Operation Claw-Eagle began, Iranian artillery units simultaneously shelled multiple PKK hideouts along the Iran-Iraq border around the Haji Omeran district.
Iran’s assault on the PKK was more than just a coincidence; it appears that Ankara and Tehran are creating the conditions for a new alliance framework in the Levant. And if the two countries are indeed cooperating against the Kurds, it would be an unexpected development because Turkey has long sought to enlist Iranian support against the PKK without success. It has been cracking down for years on suspected PKK insurgents in southern Turkey and northern Iraq, but acknowledges that it can’t continue to do so on its own. For geographical reasons, it needs Iran’s help. The operational heart of the PKK and its affiliates lies in the Qandil Mountains near the Iraq-Iran border. The jagged terrain provides easy cover for insurgents, while the proximity to major border crossings allows insurgents to bypass Turkish border controls and use the Iranian border as a corridor to reach affiliates outside Iraq. Without an Iranian crackdown on insurgent safe havens along its border with Iraq and Turkey, Turkey would struggle to completely eliminate the PKK’s regional hold.
For
years, however, despite Turkish lobbying, Tehran gave Ankara the cold shoulder – and for good reason. The two are not only regional rivals but also competitors in Iraq.
Despite a difficult history, Turkey has boosted ties with the Kurdistan Regional Government to try to balance out Iranian influence in the Iraqi government and deter Iran from building a Shiite Crescent from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea. While Turkey by no means supports Kurdish independence, it has supported Kurdish energy self-sufficiency by purchasing KRG oil and gas exports to satisfy skyrocketing Turkish demand and diversify supply routes. For years, these objectives threatened the Iraqi government’s political leverage and monopoly over energy revenue, placing Ankara at odds with Tehran. Iran continued to indirectly support factions, including the PKK, to undermine Turkish and KRG interests in Iraq.
But the two countries have recently found reasons to collaborate in northern Iraq. Both share an active interest in preventing a spillover of the fighting in Iraq, particularly after signs appeared of an emerging PKK-KRG clash this year that would have destabilized regions on Turkey’s and Iran’s doorsteps and potentially incited anti-government clashes within their own
Kurdish communities. The threat of spillover, combined with waning Iranian control over proxies in Iraq’s new government, compelled Tehran to change its stance toward Ankara.
It’s unclear how far this partnership will go. Iran and Turkey continue to pursue different agendas in Syria, the Palestinian territories and the Greater Middle East, and ultimately still see each other as competitors. But their recent experiment in northern Iraq is a definitive sign of new national security priorities and a shifting alliance structure in the Levant.
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/