Turkish Forum

Category: Iraq

  • Struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for reputation in Islamic world

    Struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for reputation in Islamic world

     

    Саудовская Аравия карта

     

     

    Gulnara Inanch,

    Head of Representative Office of Lev Gumilev Center of Russia in Azerbaijan.  

    Director of Information and Analytical Center Etnoglobus (ethnoglobus.az), editor of Russian section of Turkishnews American-Turkish Resource websitewww.turkishnews.com  

     

     

    Spread and activity of Islam within the last 20 years is the result of globalization policy of the West, particularly the U.S. Its first phase started in the late 80’s of previous century following the collapse of the Soviet Union and activity of Islam in the region.

     

    Different faith and trends of Islam which came to the territories of the Soviet Union from the Middle East and Persian Gulf became power acting against Russia during the Second Chechen War.

     

    After withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan, Taliban regime took the control of most part of Afghanistan as a result of which Islam started to be spread in Middle Asia.

     

    At the same time of opening of the geography of the Former Soviet Union to Islam, big area where the Muslims are settled have traditionally confronted with non-traditional Islam trends.

     

    Later, as a result of events called as «Arab spring» and by intervention of the US and coalition forces, governments in power in Tunis, Yemen, Egypt and Libya were overthrown and Islamic forces seized the power.

     

    In reality, when the U.S made a decision regarding government overthrow in the Middle East, it also caused the processes to be out of control in the region. After military intervention in Iraq, Iraqi regions mostly populated by Shias neighboring with Iran fell under the control of Iran.

     

    Since national consciousness in Arab countries is as the same as religious, tribal consciousness, government overthrow in Arab countries through revolution by the West increased the religious senses of people as a result of which Islamic political parties found a way to the government. Arab countries with limited freedom, living in regimes with closed doors to democracy, linked the freedom with Islam and found it reasonable that political Islam seized the power.

     

    Islamic forces, seizing the power following «Arab spring», contrary to all expectations, at least for the present moment, pursue moderate policy. The fact that new Egyptian government fights against Al-Qaida militants together with official Tel-Aviv in the borders with Israel is another proof of it. However, claims of Egypt’s new government regarding forming “Pan-Arab” empire with capital Quds by evaluating the country as influential state of the region allow us to think that all the processes are about to change towards radicalism.

     

    US military operations in Iraq and governmental overthrow in the Middle East contributed to new phase of Islamic formation. Along with hardline Islam demonstrated by “Hamas” in Palestine and “Hezbollah” in Lebanon, victory of moderate pro–Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey brought changes to world’s political order. In 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran demonstrated the world specific management order formed by unity of secular and religious laws.  Another country in the region claimed to be Islamic center is Saudi Arabia. Thus, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia joined in struggle to distribute their reputation sphere in Islamic world.

     

    Besides, “Arab Spring” has turned the stable competitiveness into armed conflict between the Shia and Sunni Islam. Another reason is the increase of reputation of Iran in the areas settled by the Shias as a result of events that happened in the Middle East.

     

    Location of the main parts of carbohydrates from Persian Gulf to Caspian Sea in the areas where the Shias live densely makes brain centers of Israel and USA to draw attention to this factor. As a result, the projects such as “the Shia Line”, “Combination of resources of Persian and CaspianBasins” has been made. This factor is one of the reasons of political processes in the Middle East caused by conflicts between the Shia and the Sunnis.

     

    On another hand, the processes in the Middle East, especially the destiny of Syria, made reconsider the relations of Islam countries among them. It should be noted that, the effort to eliminate tension of recent years and the observance of warmness in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Non-Aligned Movement Summit held in autumn of the past year in Tehran are one of the factors certifying this thought. But, this obligatory attitude should not be considered as a break from struggle against the reputation in two regional powers in Persian Gulf and Islam world.

     

    As there possibility of “Arab Spring”, which is now in Syria, is still remained for other Arab countries, to avoid it, Saudi Arabia demonstrates its desire to give to Iran its confidence breaking the coldness ice that continues for a long time.

     

    From another hand, coming into power of Islam Parties instead of overthrown powers in Arab countries and increase of salafi trends’ influence strengthens the Saudi Arabia in the region and demonstrates its twofaced game against Iran. Clear threats are stated by Salafi leaders against the Shiism.

     

    It should be stated that, “Arab Spring” caused protests by Alavis in Turkey and increase of inter-trends conflicts and allowed Al-Qaida to penetrate into this country.

     

    Al-Qaida, supported by Saudi Arabia, struggling for reputation in the region with Iran, having taken advantages of spread of salafism in the region as a result of “Arab spring”, began to increased it’s reputation.  This struggle is still in its initial phase. In the future, competition of Islamic trends, in fact, regional countries supporting these trends, will step into new phase.

     

     

     

  • Turkey is economic winner of Iraq war

    Turkey is economic winner of Iraq war

    By Daniel Dombey | Financial Times, Published: March 12

    ISTANBUL — The Americans won the war, the Iranians won the peace and the Turks won the contracts.

    Turkey, which blocked the deployment of U.S. troops through its territory during the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, is emerging 10 years on as one of the prime beneficiaries of the battle for the Iraqi market.

    Although Turkey’s relations with Baghdad are increasingly bitter, its exports to Iraq have in the past decade soared by more than 25 percent a year, reaching $10.8 billion in 2012, making Iraq Ankara’s second-most valuable export market after Germany.

    Ozgur Altug, an economist at BGC Partners in Istanbul, predicts that as Iraq grows richer because of its oil reserves, demand for Turkish goods will keep climbing — by more than $2 billion a year. Turkish contractors have also been doing rich business, working on about $3.5 billion of construction projects last year, according to businessmen and officials.

    One company, Calik Energy, boasts that it is building the two biggest projects in the Iraqi power sector, two gas turbine plants in the Mosul and Karbala regions, earning more than $800 million from the Iraqi government in the process.

    While Iran is seen as the most influential outside power in Iraq today, on Baghdad’s streets Turkey’s presence is more visible than that of any other country, with everything from malls to furniture stores to pavement bricks bearing a Turkish trademark.

    But it is the Kurdish-governed north that accounts for the bulk of Turkey’s business, absorbing about 70 percent of Turkey’s exports to Iraq. In contrast, Ankara’s relationship with the rest of the country is becoming more poisonous, with political disputes leading Baghdad to hold back on giving new government contracts to Turkish groups.

    As Ankara’s economic and diplomatic ties with the Kurdish government expand, about 1,000 Turkish businesses are working in the north, including some of Turkey’s best known banks, retailers and hotels.

    Hundreds of trucks a day clog up the land border between northern Iraq and Turkey as a flow of goods makes the journey to Kurdish markets. Turkish products dominate the regional capital of Irbil, from the old covered souk to modern showrooms in residential neighborhoods.

    Less obtrusively, other groups are carving out markets for themselves. From his base in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, Adnan Altunkaya says his family-owned company commands two-thirds of the Iraqi diaper sector.

    Sales to the country account for 90 percent of the Altunkaya group’s annual $400 million exports and have been rising by 50 to 60 percent a year for the past two years. It has also just taken the leading position in the Iraqi olive market.

    “Our business with Iraq is increasing constantly,” he says. “But of course it is affected by political tension.”

    In large part, the success story represents Turkey’s return to its natural market, from which it was shut out since the 1980s by war, sanctions and instability. As a neighboring state with an industrial base, rich agricultural heartlands and businessmen undaunted by challenging environments, Turkey has advantages others find hard to match.

    via Turkey is economic winner of Iraq war – The Washington Post.

    more : http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkey-is-economic-winner-of-iraq-war/2013/03/12/ec046746-8b47-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.html

  • A decade after US-led invasion, Kurds look to Turkey, the West, mull future without Iraq

    A decade after US-led invasion, Kurds look to Turkey, the West, mull future without Iraq

    IRBIL, Iraq –  At an elite private school in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, children learn Turkish and English before Arabic. University students dream of jobs in Europe, not Baghdad. And a local entrepreneur says he doesn’t like doing business elsewhere because the rest of the country is too unstable.

    In the decade since U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq, Kurds have trained their sights toward Turkey and the West, at the expense of ties with the still largely dysfunctional rest of the country.

    Aided by an oil-fueled economic boom, Kurds have consolidated their autonomy, increased their leverage against the central government in Baghdad and are pursuing an independent foreign policy often at odds with that of Iraq.

    Kurdish leaders say they want to remain part of Iraq for now, but increasingly acrimonious disputes with Baghdad over oil and territory might just push them toward separation.

    “This is not a holy marriage that has to remain together,” Falah Bakir, the top foreign policy official in the Kurdistan Regional Government, said of the Kurdish region’s link to Iraq.

    A direct oil export pipeline to Turkey, which officials here say could be built by next year, would lay the economic base for independence. For now, the Kurds can’t survive without Baghdad; their region is eligible for 17 percent of the national budget of more than $100 billion, overwhelmingly funded by oil exports controlled by the central government.

    Since the war, the Kurds mostly benefited from being part of Iraq. At U.S. prodding, majority Shiites made major concessions in the 2005 constitution, recognizing Kurdish autonomy and allowing the Kurds to keep their own security force when other militias were dismantled. Shiites also accepted a Kurd as president of predominantly Arab Iraq.

    Still, for younger Kurds, who never experienced direct rule by Baghdad, cutting ties cannot come soon enough.

    More than half the region’s 5.3 million people were born after 1991 when a Western-enforced no-fly zone made Kurdish self-rule possible for the first time by shielding the region against Saddam Hussein. In the preceding years, Saddam’s forces had destroyed most Kurdish villages, killing tens of thousands and displacing many more.

    Students at Irbil’s private Cihan University say they feel Kurdish, not Iraqi, and that Iraq’s widespread corruption, sectarian violence and political deadlock are holding their region back.

    “I want to see an independent Kurdistan, and I don’t want to be part of Iraq,” said Bilend Azad, 20, an architectural engineering student walking with a group of friends along the landscaped campus. “Kurdistan is better than other parts of Iraq. If we stay with them, we will be bad like them and we won’t be free.”

    Kurds are among the main beneficiaries of the March 20, 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam, and sympathy for America still runs strong here.

    Rebaz Zedbagi, a partner in the Senk Group, a road construction and real estate investment company with an annual turnover of $100 million, said his own success would have been unthinkable without the war.

    The 28-year-old said he won’t do business in the rest of Iraq, citing bureaucracy and frequent attacks by insurgents, but said opportunities in the relatively stable Kurdish region are boundless.

    “I believe Kurdistan is like a baby tiger,” said Zedbagi, sipping a latte in a Western-style espresso bar in the Family Mall, Irbil’s largest shopping center. “I believe it will be very powerful in the Middle East.”

    The Kurdish region has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past decade.

    Its capital, Irbil, once had the ambiance of a large village. It has grown into a city of 1.3 million people, with the beginnings of a skyline, several five-star hotels and construction cranes dotting the horizon.

    The SUV-driving elites have moved into townhouses in new gated communities with grand names like “The English Village.” Irbil’s shiny glass-and-steel airport puts Baghdad’s to shame.

    The number of cars registered in the province of Irbil — one of three in the Kurdish region — jumped from 4,000 in 2003 to half a million today and the number of hotels from a handful to 234, said provincial governor Nawzad Mawlood.

    Planning Minister Ali Sindi took pride in a sharp drop in illiteracy, poverty and unemployment in recent years.

    But the Kurds have a lot more work cut out for them. The region needs to spend more than $30 billion on highways, schools and other basic infrastructure in the next decade, Sindi said. A housing shortage and a high annual population growth rate of almost 4 percent have created demand for 70,000 new apartments a year.

    There’s also a strong undercurrent of discontent, amid concerns about the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Opposition activists complain of official corruption, and the international group Human Rights Watch said security forces arbitrarily detained 50 journalists, activists and opposition figures in 2012.

    The region’s parliament “is weak and cannot effectively question the (Kurdish) government,” said Abdullah Mala-Nouri of the opposition Gorran party.

    Iraq’s central government strongly opposes the Kurds’ quest for full-blown independence.

    Iraqi leaders bristle at Kurdish efforts to forge an independent foreign policy, and the two sides disagree over control of disputed areas along their shared internal border. In November, Kurdish fighters and the Iraqi army were engaged in a military standoff, and tensions remain high.

    Oil is at the root of those disputes.

    Iraq sits atop the world’s fourth largest reserves of conventional crude, or about 143 billion barrels, and oil revenues make up 95 percent of the state budget. Kurdish officials claim their region holds 45 billion barrels, though that figure cannot be confirmed independently.

    The central government claims sole decision-making rights over oil and demands that all exports go through state-run pipelines. The Kurds say they have the right to develop their own energy policy and accuse the government of stalling on negotiating a new deal on sharing oil revenues.

    The Kurds have also passed their own energy law and signed more than 50 deals with foreign oil companies, offering more generous terms than Baghdad.

    An oil company doing business in the region, Genel Energy, began shipping Kurdish oil by truck to Turkey in January.

    The planned direct export pipeline is of strategic importance, said Ali Balo, a senior Kurdish oil official. “Why are we building it? Because we always have problems with Baghdad.”

    The project also highlights Turkey’s growing involvement in the region, a marked change from just a few years ago when ties were strained over Ankara’s battle against Kurdish insurgents seeking self-rule in Turkey.

    Mutual need forged the new relationship.

    Turkey, part of the region’s Sunni Muslim camp, needs more oil to fuel its expanding economy. It prefers to buy from the Kurds rather than the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, seen as a member of the region’s rival Iranian-influenced axis. The Kurds, also predominantly Sunni, need Turkey not just as a gateway for oil exports but also as a business partner.

    Almost half of nearly 1,900 foreign companies operating here are Turkish, government officials say. Seventy percent of Turkey’s annual $15 billion Iraq trade is with the Kurdish region.

    In a sign of the times, Turkish and English are the languages of instruction at a top private school in Irbil. During music class at the Bilkent school, third-graders sitting cross-legged on a large carpet sang “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” in Turkish, followed by “London Bridge” in English.

    The 351 students start studying Kurdish, the native language of most, in third grade. Arabic is introduced last, in fourth grade.

    The curriculum reflects the priorities of the school’s founder, a member of Iraq’s ethnic Turkmen minority. But it also suits Kurdish parents who believe their children’s future is tied to Turkey.

    Oddly, Turkish-Kurdish ties are flourishing at a time of continued cross-border violence.

    Turkish warplanes routinely strike bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Turkish rebel group operating from the Qandil mountains of Iraq’s Kurdish region. The PKK launches raids into Turkey from its mountain hideouts.

    Both sides are simply keeping the two issues separate.

    Turkey has stopped linking improved ties with Irbil to resolving Turkey’s conflict with the PKK, a fight which has claimed thousands of lives since 1984. The Kurds keep quiet about Turkish airstrikes on their territory.

    As problems with Baghdad fester, Kurdish officials say their region’s departure from Iraq is inevitable. Many here dream of an independent Kurdistan, made up of parts of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, home to more than 25 million Kurds.

    “As a people, we deserve that,” said Bakir, the foreign policy official. “We want to see that in our lifetime.”

    But with key allies such as the U.S. and Turkey opposed to splitting up Iraq, the Kurds say they won’t act with haste or force.

    Asked if the Kurdish region would declare independence once it can export oil directly, Bakir said: “We will cross that bridge when we get there. At this time, we are still committed to a democratic, federal, pluralistic Iraq.”

    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/10/decade-after-us-led-invasion-kurds-look-to-turkey-west-mull-future-without-iraq/#ixzz2NDU9esgq

  • Turkey’s Foray Into the Fertile Crescent

    Turkey’s Foray Into the Fertile Crescent

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    The rebel-controlled Atmeh refugee camp in northern Syria is only yards from the border with Turkey, which provides strong support to the Syrian rebels.

    By SONER CAGAPTAY

    The biggest open secret in Ankara is that Turkey detests Iran, which it sees as undermining its interests in Syria and Iraq. Turkish leaders will not admit this publicly, for their country desperately needs Iranian natural gas and oil to continue its phenomenal economic growth.

    But Ankara increasingly regards both Iraq and Syria as arenas for proxy conflict with Iran; in the former, Turkey backs the Sunni Arabs and Kurds against the central government in Baghdad under Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, seen by Turkey as an Iranian puppet; in the latter, Ankara supports the rebels against the Tehran-backed Assad regime.

    Turkey has answered Iran’s challenge by building influence in the northern parts of both Iraq and Syria. This signals the rise of a yet-undeclared Turkish policy in the Middle East: Anticipating the decentralization of post-Assad Syria, and hoping to take advantage of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish north, Turkey is carving out a cordon sanitaire across the northern Fertile Crescent, building influence in the Kurdish population as well as in large commercial centers such as Aleppo and Mosul.

    When Turkey moved to foster closer ties with its Muslim neighbors about a decade ago, it hoped that such relations would help boost Iraq’s stability and improve political ties with Syria and Iran.

    But the Arab rebellions have rendered these designs obsolete. At first Ankara provided the Assad regime with friendly advice to stop killing civilians. But the Damascus regime refused, and Turkey’s stance flipped in August 2011: Ankara went from being Assad’s friendly neighbor to his chief adversary. Turkey started providing safe haven to the Syrian opposition, and, according to media reports, even arming the rebels.

    This policy has cast Ankara and Tehran, Assad’s patron, as chief rivals in Syria. And this, in turn, has exacerbated competition in Iraq, where Ankara supported Ayad Allawi’s secular Iraqiya bloc in the run-up to the 2010 elections, poisoning relations with Maliki.

    In the aftermath of Maliki’s reelection, Ankara has favored closer contacts among Sunni Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq. Turkey’s trade volume with northern Iraq has climbed to $8 billion per year compared to only $2 billion with the southern portion of the country, and Ankara is seeking lucrative oil deals with Iraqi Kurds.

    In short, for all practical purposes, northern Iraq has become part of the Turkish sphere of influence. This is especially surprising considering that only a few years ago Turkish hostility toward Iraqi Kurdish leaders seemed ready to boil over into an outright invasion of the area.

    Today, by contrast, Turkish Airlines offers daily flights to Sulaymaniyah and Erbil inside the Kurdistan Regional Government (K.R.G.) in northern Iraq, and Iraqi Kurds take vacations in Antalya, a Turkish resort city on the Mediterranean.

    Mosul, a Sunni-majority province in northern Iraq, is also pivoting toward Ankara. Turkey currently provides safe haven to Tariq al-Hashimi, Iraq’s Sunni vice president, whose arrest warrant has become a rallying cause for many Sunnis. At the same time, historic links between Mosul and Turkey, dating back to the Ottoman Empire, are being resurrected: When I last visited Gaziantep, a city in southern Turkey, my hotel was full of Arab businessmen from Mosul.

    Before the Syrian uprising began, a similar development was taking place in Aleppo, another Fertile Crescent city that enjoyed deep commercial ties with Turkey under the Ottoman Empire.

    Located only 26 miles from the border, Aleppo had become a focal point of Turkish businesses in northern Syria, and there is no doubt that the strong support the Turks have provided to the rebels in northern Syria will increase Turkey’s influence in the city after the end of the Assad regime (it is no accident that the largest contiguous rebel-controlled areas in Syria are around Aleppo).

    The missing part of Turkey’s prospective influence in the northern Fertile Crescent were the Syrian Kurds — until Turkey announced peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K.). This group, which has waged a war against Turkey for over three decades, is also known to be the best-organized movement among the Syrian Kurds.

    Ankara hopes that peace talks with the P.K.K. will help heal the bad blood with Syrian Kurds. Indeed, Turkey has reworked its Middle East policy: It now views the Kurds as the foundation of its zone of influence across the northern Fertile Crescent.

    Yet not all is rosy for Turkey. The peace talks with the P.K.K. could go awry, driving P.K.K. rejectionists into the arms of Iran or even Baghdad. There is also an emerging threat in allowing radical fighters into northern Syria. This is a dangerous game, for once the Assad regime falls, Turkey might find itself with a jihadist problem in its newly acquired sphere of influence.

    Soner Cagaptay is director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of “Turkey Rising: 21st Century’s First Muslim Power.”

    A version of this op-ed appeared in print on February 28, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune.
  • Turkey Contributes To Iraqi Fragmentation

    Turkey Contributes To Iraqi Fragmentation

    By: Necdet Pamir for Al-Monitor. Posted on February 20.
    The refinery at Khurmala oilfield in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, opened in 2009. (photo by REUTERS/Azad Lashkari)Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2013/02/turkey-krg-relations-strain-future-iraq-oil-interests.html#ixzz2Lwcp1oRF
    The refinery at Khurmala oilfield in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, opened in 2009. (photo by REUTERS/Azad Lashkari)
    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/02/turkey-krg-relations-strain-future-iraq-oil-interests.html#ixzz2Lwcp1oRF

    The International Energy Agency’s Iraq Energy Outlook (2012) reports, “Alongside its announcement of 143 billion barrels of proven reserves, the Ministry of Oil stated in 2010 that Iraq’s undiscovered resources amounted to some 215 billion barrels.” While the former figure is equivalent to almost 9 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, the latter is more than 13 percent of the total. Iraq also has significant natural gas reserves that constitute some 1.5% of the world’s total, making Iraq 13th among global reserve holders.

    About This Article

    Summary :

    Turkey’s relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government may be undermining its long-term economic and energy interests in Iraq, writes Necdet Pamir.

    Author: Necdet Pamir

    For neighboring Turkey — which imports 93% of the oil it consumes and 98% of its gas — Iraq offers an excellent source of potentially cheaper energy and an opportunity to diversify its supply. Iraq’s favorable exploration, development and production costs as well as lower transportation expenses highlight its importance for Turkey, which paid $60.1 billion for its energy imports in 2012. That year, 12% of its oil imports came from Iraq, while 41% was imported from Iran.

    The Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), the state-run oil and gas exploration and production company, began trying to win bids in Iraq in 1994. The company finally successed (with partners) in 2009, winning five successive bids, all of them located around Basra: the Siba gas field, Mansuriyah gas field, Badra oil field, Missan oil field and Block 9.

    This modest success, capping a 15-year effort, now seems to be threatened by a Turkish government decision to apparently transport oil and gas produced in northern Iraq without the approval of the Iraqi federal government. Modest volumes were being transported using road tankers, but Ankara and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) then declared their intention in 2012 to jointly construct oil and gas pipelines to transport larger quantities. The volume for the oil pipeline was announced as starting at 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) with the expectation of an increase to 1 million bpd. If a gas pipeline is built, it would have a capacity of 10 billion cubic meters a day.

    In the inevitable reaction, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, in an interview with the BBC on Nov. 15, 2012, said, “If Turkey does not give up supporting pipelines to transport northern Iraq’s oil and gas directly through Turkey, then the Iraqi central government would not hesitate to block Turkish companies from investing or bidding in Iraq.” Shahristani further stated, “According to the bilateral agreement between the governments of Turkey and Iraq, Turkey should exclusively work with the Iraqi central government, which is the only authority to permit the exports according to the Iraqi constitution.”

    Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki accused Turkey of wanting more than oil, stating, “Turkey made a deal with Iraq’s Kurdish administration, and an agreement aimed to divide Iraq.” Maliki pointed to reports from politicians in the region as evidence that such a deal was in fact made.

    How Iraqi oil and gas should be managed lies in articles 111 and 112 of the constitution. Article 111 states, “Oil and gas are owned by all the people of Iraq in all the regions and governates,” and article 112 defines the framework for management of oil and gas extraction from current fields as well as newly discovered ones. In both cases, authority is given to the central (federal) government, albeit along with the producing regions and governates. Article 112 further states that any related activity is to be regulated by law. (Of note, the Hydrocarbon Law is awaiting ratification by the Iraqi parliament.) Thus, the federal government considers the Turkish and KRG efforts a violation of the Iraqi constitution and a challenge to its sovereignity.

    A list of other contentious issues have further complicated relations between Iraq and Turkey, including Ankara’s refusal to extradite Tariq al-Hashimi, the former Iraqi vice president who was charged with running death squads and sentenced to death in absentia in 2012. As a consequence of the prevailing tensions, in November 2012 the “Iraqi cabinet [had] expelled Turkey’s state-owned TPAO from the consortium that was granted the rights to explore Block 9, and has asked Kuwait Energy to take over the shareholding.” It seems fair to say that if the Turkish government continues with its current approach, it should come as no surprise if the other four bids are also voided or worse.

    Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi announced on Jan. 16 that Baghdad plans to sue Genel Energy, the first direct exporter of oil from northern Iraq, and perhaps cut government funding allocated for the region unless it ceases what he labeled as smuggling. Genel Energy is a joint Turkish-British private company following a recent reshuffle of its equity structure.

    The possible consequences of Turkish policy could become a broader problem because of concerns in Washington. Francis Ricciardone, the US ambassador to Turkey, reflected on them when he said, “Turkey and Iraq have no choice but to pursue strong ties if they want to optimize the use of Iraq’s resources and export them via Turkey. If Turkey and Iraq fail to optimize their economic ties, the failure could be worse than that. There could be a more violent conflict in Iraq and [the chances of] disintegration of Iraq could be [strengthened].” During the last days of 2012, relations between the Baghdad government and Iraqi Kurds became so tense that they both reinforced military positions along their internal border.

    Ricciardone’s words appear to have fallen on deaf ears, at least at the government level, but perhaps someone in Ankara has the capacity to discern the agenda evident in the words of Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the KRG, in an interview with Time magazine in December 2012. When asked, “Is it possible to say that you are closer than ever to an independent Kurdistan?,” Barzani responded, “I believe, yes, we have a very good opportunity. But we have a lot of challenges as well. How we can — I mean an independent Kurdistan — first of all we have to convince at least one country around us. Without convincing them, we cannot do this. Being landlocked we have to have a partner, a regional power to be convinced and internationally, a major power to be convinced to support that. What we want right now is to have an economic independence within Iraq.”

    The Turkish government’s efforts toward the construction of oil and gas pipelines directly connecting the KRG-controlled oil and gas fields to Turkey without the approval of the Iraqi federal government could be a step toward fulfilling the first “challenge” cited by Barzani. After economic independence within Iraq, the eventual target it seems is an independent Kurdistan. The one country the Kurds need to support them will reinforce their landlocked country’s quest for independence. What country could they possibly have in mind?

    Necdet Pamir is chief editor of EnerjiEnergy.com and an instructor at Bilkent University.

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/02/turkey-krg-relations-strain-future-iraq-oil-interests.html#ixzz2Lwc1Eg8c

  • Turkey-Iran Ties Strained By Iraq, Syria

    Turkey-Iran Ties Strained By Iraq, Syria

    Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi attend a news conference in Ankara
    Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi (L), attend a news conference in Ankara, Jan. 19, 2012. (photo by REUTERS/Umit Bektas)

    Semih Idiz for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse. Posted on February 19.

    Ask diplomats from both countries and they will say Turkish-Iranian relations rest on a solid foundation, despite occasional turbulence and attempts by “nefarious western countries” to spoil them. But the situation is not that rosy with Ankara and Tehran increasingly competing for influence in the Middle East, rather than cooperating to stabilize the region.

    About This Article

    Summary :

    Tehran and Ankara are struggling to keep up appearances as differences over Iran and Syria begin to take a toll on their bilateral relationship, writes Semih Idiz.

    Author: Semih Idiz
    Posted on : February 19 2013

    Take Syria, for example, a topic that both countries diverge on radically. Tehran continues to support President Bashar al Assad as a matter of vital importance for its regional interests. Ankara, on the other hand, continues to support Syrian groups fighting to depose Assad and overturn his regime.

    Given this situation, Turkey and Iran are now accusing each other of prolonging the Syrian crisis. In a rare confession Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu even admitted, only a few days ago, that he had what appears to be a futile phone conversation on the topic with his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi.

    “I discussed Syria with the Iranian foreign minister, but we cannot agree.” Davutoglu told reporters bluntly after a meeting of the Turkey-EU Join Parliamentary Commission in Ankara on Feb. 14. He nevertheless added that “they would keep the lines of communication open” with Tehran.

    But this is not the only problem between the two countries. Tehran is also disappointed with Turkey for ostensibly bowing to pressures from the US in order to facilitate what Iranian officials claim are Western and Israeli military plans for the region. Tehran is also unhappy over the fact that Turkey’s trade with Iran has started to drop because of US pressures, a fact that is particularly noticeable in the dramatic fall seen in Turkey’s crude oil imports from Iran.

    This fact is particularly noteworthy since officials from both countries frequently pointed to the growing levels of trade in the past, when trying to show just how “excellent,” ties between the two countries were despite pressures on Ankara to comply with Western sanctions on Iran.

    Looking back over these past three decades one does see that lines of communication between the two countries have remained open and that ties have weathered many storms. This was especially the case in the 1980s and 1990s when staunchly secularist Turkish governments frequently accused Tehran of trying to export its Islamic revolution to Turkey.

    Great hopes were raised in Ankara and Tehran for taking these ties even further after the advent of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey in 2002. The AKP’s Islamist roots did in fact turn Ankara into a staunch supporter of Tehran against its Western critics and enemies who were, and still are, concerned that Iran is trying to become a regional nuclear power.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan annoyed Washington and Turkey’s NATO allies at that state when he  frequently suggested that he could not understand why those who possessed nuclear weapons where trying to prevent Iran from getting them. Erdogan’s first target was Israel, of course, but his remarks were clearly aimed at the US, too.

    Turkey also achieved what it believed at the time to be major international coup for Turkish diplomacy, when, together with Brazil, it negotiated a swap deal in May 2010 with Tehran for Iran’s stock of enriched uranium. In Tehran, a jubilant Davutoglu said after the announcement of the deal that there was no longer any need for any UN sanctions against Iran, a remark taken in the West as a clear sign of Turkey’s advocacy of Iran.

    But Washington rejected the Turkish-Brazilian deal and none of Turkey’s NATO allies were prepared to support it either. Instead, the US started applying pressure on Ankara to comply with the sanctions against Tehran, and to allow the stationing of NATO’s advanced anti-missile radar systems in Turkey — a vital part of the US-led missile defense shield project targeting Iran.

    Weighing its NATO membership against advocacy of Iran’s rights, Ankara eventually complied with this request in November 2011 and allowed the deployment of this radar system in the town of Kurecik, in eastern Turkey. Erdogan and Davutoglu insisted vehemently then, and still do, that the radar was not against Iran, citing the fact that no NATO document relating to it referred to any country as a target.

    American and NATO officials, however, made it clear through various statements that Iran was indeed the prime target. Meanwhile no one in Tehran accepted the Erdogan-Davutoglu line either. In the end, this deployment turned out to be a critical turning point in Turkish-Iranian relations that have since also come under added pressure due to the Syrian crisis.

    The strong opposition by Iran to the deployment of Patriot missiles against a possible attack from Syria is also related to this topic. Tehran says the Patriots are in Turkey for the long haul adding that their real mission is to guard the radar system in Kurecik against a possible attack from Iran. Ranking Iranian military officials have made it clear that if Israel attacks Iran, all US and NATO facilities in the region will be considered legitimate targets.

    Meanwhile Turkey’s tense relations with the pro-Iranian Maliki government in Baghdad, as Ankara continues to deepen political and economic ties with Northern Iraqi Kurds, are also fueling Iranian suspicions over Turkey’s regional intentions. Tehran is making its dissatisfaction over this known, too.

    The Kurdish daily Rudaw reported recently that Iran had “warned Iraq’s autonomous Kurds against thinking about independence, harming relations with the Shiite government in Baghdad and getting too close to Turkey.”

    This message was reportedly transmitted by Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s powerful Al Quds Force, to a delegation from Northern Iraq which recently visited Tehran. Al Quds is said to have enormous influence in Iraq, and is reportedly also helping the Assad regime in Syria fight against opposition forces.

    “You should not think about the division of Iraq and harming Kurdish-Shiite relations” Soleimani reportedly told a delegation from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two major parties in Kurdish Northern Iraq.

    The PUK delegation is said to have included Kosrat Rasul Ali, the party’s acting leader, its deputy secretary general Barham Salih and Khasraw Gul Muhammad, a member of the party’s leadership council. All three are highly influential figures in Northern Iraq.

    Meanwhile, Baram Majeed Khan, a PUK advisor on Iranian affairs, was quoted saying “Iran is worried about the fact that the Kurdistan Region has strong economic and commercial ties with Turkey” and adding, “Iran feels that Turkey has crept into the Kurdistan Region more than it should.”

    Meanwhile, Iranian officials are said to be deeply disappointed with the 29% drop in crude oil exports by Turkey from Iran in December 2012, compared to the previous month, after Washington effectively blocked a “gold-for-oil” deal between the two countries.

    Ankara could circumvent Western sanctions against Tehran by means of that deal under which oil and gas purchased by Turkey would be paid for in Turkish liras lodged in Halkbank, a state owned Turkish bank. Iranian operators would then buy gold bullion on the Turkish market with that money and transport it overland to Iran.

    According to Reuters, a new provision of US sanctions which came into force on Feb. 6, effectively tightens control on sales of precious metals to Iran and also prevents Halkbank from processing oil payments for Iran by other countries.

    Clearly, the lines of communication between Ankara and Tehran will remain open, but these developments belie the rosy picture diplomat are trying to paint for Turkish-Iranians relations which are marked increasingly with rivalry rather than amity.

    Semih İdiz is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse. A journalist who has been covering diplomacy and foreign-policy issues for major Turkish newspapers for 30 years, his opinion pieces can be followed in the English language Hurriyet Daily News. He can also be read in Taraf. His articles have been published in The Financial Times, the Times, Mediterranean Quarterly and Foreign Policy magazine, and he is a frequent contributor to BBC World, VOA, NPR, Deutche Welle, various Israeli media organizations and Al Jazeera.

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/02/turkey-iran-tensions-rise-syria.html#ixzz2LQrdcliz