Turkey not really loser in Iraq’s government deal

Turkey and US President Barack Obama praised Iraqi moves to form an “inclusive” government on Friday, but the two-day-old deal was already looking fragile after Sunni lawmakers walked out of parliament, clouding the possibilities for working with Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Members of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc have accused al-Maliki’s Shiite coalition of breaking promises under the deal, which aimed to overcome an eight-month deadlock and allow the creation of a new Iraqi government.

Iraqiya has accused the Shiite alliance of violating an agreement to abolish the controversial de-Baathification law. A refusal to bring the issue up for a vote during Thursday’s parliament session prompted most members of the Sunni-backed bloc to walk out, dampening optimism about a power-sharing deal reached the day before.

Speaking about Turkey’s role in making up the Iraqi government, Hüsnü Mahalli, a columnist with Akşam daily, said Turkey is not only siding with the Sunnis, but it is building an equal relationship with all other groups. He said Turkey is the only country that has urged Sunnis to take part in the political scene in Iraq since the 2005 elections. “Turkey has done these activities with the US. The last politician who visited Turkey was al-Maliki,” he pointed out.

Members of the Sunni minority said they were being squeezed out of a major role in power, fearing the new government would just be a continuation of the last four years of Shiite dominance with a strong role for the Shiite parties’ ally Iran.

The agreement ironed out Wednesday by representatives from all Iraq’s main ethnic and sectarian political groups paved the way for a parliament session Thursday in which Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani was re-elected president.

Talabani went ahead and asked al-Maliki to start putting together his Cabinet, a process that could take several weeks.

The agreement gave Iraqiya the parliament speaker’s position and Iyad Allawi a position as head of a still-undefined council, although he has yet to publicly accept the post. It is still unclear what other positions the Iraqiya list would receive, but overall the deal fell far short of Sunni ambitions for greater political power after years of governments dominated by religious Shiite parties.

Their hopes had been further raised because Iraqiya won 91 seats in the 325-member parliament, two more than al-Maliki’s list but short of a majority.

Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, disagreed that Sunnis got anything out of the deal. “By and large, the Sunnis are not getting that much,” she told AP. She said the true test will be whether Iraqiya receives any of the powerful ministries such as foreign affairs, interior or defense.

Turkey has sought a greater Sunni role in the new government, fearing that otherwise disillusioned members of Iraq’s Sunni minority could turn toward insurgency, fueling violence.

Hamza Akengin, an expert from Marmara University who talked to Sunday’s Zaman from an international conference on Iraq in the southern city of Hatay, said there must be some kind of bargaining regarding Sunnis in exchange for their being out of the government.

The head of the Guardians Council, one of Iran’s top clerical ruling bodies, praised al-Maliki’s return to power and described it as a blow to neighboring, mainly Sunni Arab countries who opposed al-Maliki.

Mahalli said Turkey’s advantage in helping establish the new government was its neutral position vis-à-vis Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups. Mathematically speaking, Mahalli said, Iran seemed to be the winning side. But he said Turkey’s role cannot be underestimated. “Turkey has not explicitly sided with any group and that made all factions in society have love, small or big, for Turkey. Even pro-Iranian factions have some sort of sympathy toward Turkey,” the expert noted. In ranking who won the political contest, Mahalli claimed that Turkey has become the most successful one.

Oddly enough, both the US and Iran had been working toward the same goal: an al-Maliki return to power. But they differed strongly on the degree to which the Sunnis would be involved in the new government, with Iran pushing for only token Sunni participation and the US lobbying for a real partnership.

As al-Maliki accepted Talabani’s nomination for a second term after the Sunnis walked out, it appeared Iran had prevailed.

The Kurds were equally frustrated, accusing al-Maliki of adopting a dictatorial style of governance. They bristled at his opposition to what they saw as their right to directly contract foreign companies to explore for oil in their autonomous region in northern Iraq.

Mahalli said Kurds played skillfully, and they ostensibly became “heroes” that ended Iraq’s protracted political stalemate. “The primary reason was that Kurds stayed engaged only with Americans and that was the principal motive behind their success. Noting that northern Iraq’s behavior with respect to its decision on secession will determine the future of Iraq, Mahalli said this fact made the region more powerful and a ‘kingmaker’,” the columnist noted.

Mahalli said that Turkey is doing what democracy requires: There was an election and a group supported by Sunnis won, and Turkey supported the group that will make up the government.

He said he doesn’t think the newly formed government spells optimism for the future of Iraq. “Political tradition is aimed at making a new Iraq that will be ethnically-split, and political powers will be shared along ethnic lines that will make the war-torn country vulnerable. As this will undermine the security in the country, the new deal will mean virtually nothing in this vein,” he concluded.

Akengin said distribution of power among ministries and making policies based on weight of ethnic and religious groups cannot really contribute to the solution of the problem. “But the formation of a government, establishment of stability is more important,” the expert said.