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Turkish-Iranian Relations
By K. Gajendra Singh
Al-Jazeerah, May 21, 2006
The illegal US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq has, predictably, opened a
Pandora's box in the region, bringing about unforeseen turmoil among
Iraq's neighbors including Turkey and Iran.
>From the ashes of the Ottoman Empire emerged the secular Turkish
republic under Kemal Ataturk, and--in spite of historical enmity and
rivalry--normal relations with Iran. After World War II, Britain and
the US allied with them and Iraq and Pakistan against an expanding
Soviet Russia, with Turkey seemingly an unsinkable NATO aircraft
carrier armed with a million men. Turkey's relations with Iran after
Khomeini's 1979 revolution sank, as Tehran quit all western alliances
and old strategic and religious suspicions reemerged. Ankara remained
by-and-large neutral in the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war.
Now Ankara is returning to the Middle East and Muslim world, a process
started by the first ever Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan,
whose short-lived coalition government was shown the door by the
military in 1997. Erbakan had mentored current Turkish Premier Recep
Tayyip Erdogan before the establishment of a less Islamic and more
"acceptable" AKP. Turkish-Iranian cooperation was thereby sealed by
the visit of Erdogan to Tehran in July 2004, preceded and followed by
high-level visits. Bilateral trade and economic ties always remained
strong, with Turkey a major transit route through Europe to Iran.
The Iraqi quagmire, incubating ethnic and sectarian civil war and
violent chaos, threatens to overflow beyond the borders of northern
Iraq (known as Kurdistan), with the US putting Iran in its crosshairs
for uranium enrichment (which was legitimate even under the
almost-dead Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty apartheid regime). With
different strategic perspectives in the region, the US-Turkish NATO
alliance has withered.
While uneasy with Iran's mastering of enrichment technology, Ankara
now faces a more imminent threat to its territorial integrity in the
Kurdish southeast, which is part of the Kurdish highlands straddling
Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Kirkuk in northern Iraq, which floats on
petroleum and has a substantial presence of Turkomans, Turkey's ethnic
cousins, was set aside by the British in 1919 after the
ceasefire. Like Washington's Operation Iraqi Freedom, the British also
promised the Istanbul's Arab subjects independence--only to subjugate
them. Eventually, after a long and bloody resistance, Iraq overthrew
the British-anointed Hashemite dynasty to become a secular republic.
Throughout history, ever-disunited Kurds could not create a strong
kingdom. Whatever their differences, Ottoman, Persian and Arab
empires joined handsto keep the Kurds from uniting, with far-off
powers--the British, Russians, and now the Americans--exploiting their
aspirations. Today, however, the heady scent of
autonomy-towards-independence in north Iraq rouses similar hopes among
Turkey's Kurds. Harmonization of Turkey's political structure and laws
with EU norms has helped to fulfill many of the Kurds' cultural and
linguistic demands, the raison d'etre for the PKK rebellion in the
southeast that hascost more than 35,000 lives since 1984, including
the lives of 5,000 Turkish soldiers, and laid the region to
waste. Still, PKK cadres have sheltered in the northern Iraqi
mountains since the end of the 1991 war, and have mounted many attacks
inside Turkey, killing soldiers and civilians.
With the US unwilling and unable to take action against the PKK,
Turkish armed forces, reemerging again as a force in Turkey's
politics, have amassed a quarter of a million troops in its
southeast. Before the 2003 invasion, Turkish leaders revived their old
claims over Kirkuk, but have not repeated them after seeing the fierce
Iraqi resistance. Kurds in northern Iraq reportedly trained by Israel
and now the US have been sent to do reconnaissance and stir trouble in
Iran, which has retaliated with bombings inside northern Iraq. So,
indeed, has Turkey.
Another important change in these equations is the fast decline in
Turkish-Israeli ties from almost ally-level, with joint military
exercisesand defense hardware ties, to a situation where Erdogan,
incensed by Israel's meddling in north Iraq, referred to Israeli
actions in Gaza and the West Bank as "state terrorism." Ankara also
hosted a Hamas delegation after its recent electoral victory in
Palestine. Relations between Turkey and Syria, torn by abiding
disputes over the sharing of Euphrates water, Syrian claims to
Turkey's Antakya province and Damascus' brief tolerance of PKK
training camps in Syrian-controlled Lebanese territory, have warmed,
despite the subsequent US disapproval. Turkey, while improving its
own relations with Moscow, has not objected to Russia's return to
Syria, and has revived Russian military cooperation against vehement
Israeli and US protests.
Ankara and Tehran need to cooperate to survive. No one can predict the
catastrophic consequences if the civil war sucks in Iraq's other
neighbors. Whatever blood Washington might spill, US troops must
eventually withdraw. Federations are hair-brained schemes for the
region, where the Hama "rule or die" philosophy prevails. The Sunni
minority in Iraq has been in control for centuries, much as the 12
percent Shi'ite Alawite elite has ruled over theSyrian Sunni majority
since the 1960s. Further, the inner unity of the autonomousnorth Iraqi
Kurdish state, already flexing its muscles through a regional
government, army and Kurdish Peshmarga militia, is ephemeral and
fragile for all its tall talk.
Whether or not Iraq is to split into Sunni and Shi'ite Arab states,
with Kurdistan in the north, will depend on the depth of Iraqi
nationalism 80 years on. Only a fierce nationalist Iraqi resistance,
with even more bloodshed, can keep Iraq united.
After US war fatigue and retreat, Turkey, Iran, and others (including
Russia, now back in the region bearing missiles for Damascus and
nuclear plants and military arms, as well as UN Security Council
support for Tehran) will have a difficult task in stabilizing the
region. If the US implements its irrational military option against
Iran, then all bets are off on any predictions for the Middle East and
beyond. Did the US foresee the outcome of its ill-planned venture to
grab Iraqi oil and control the region's resources? Or, for that
matter, did those who initiated the two world wars predict the
outcome?
At the end of the day, Turkey seeks to be a conduit for the export of
Iran's oil and gas to the West, serving the EU's increasing appetite,
and as the only alternative to the Russian gas and oil monopoly. The
Azeri and Caspian Sea crude transport to the Mediterranean will close
this year due to the US-financed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline--built
to keep Russia and Iran out. But this would be just one more East-West
strategic fault line.
Published first on 18/5/2006 � _bitterlemons-international.org_
(http://bitterlem ons-international.org/)
K. Gajendra Singh served as Indian ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan in
1992-96. Prior to that, he served as ambassador to Jordan (during the 1990-91
Gulf war), Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundationfor
Indo-Turkic Studies.
The author submitted this article for publication at Al-Jazeerah on May 20,
2006.
By K. Gajendra Singh
Al-Jazeerah, May 21, 2006
The illegal US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq has, predictably, opened a
Pandora's box in the region, bringing about unforeseen turmoil among
Iraq's neighbors including Turkey and Iran.
>From the ashes of the Ottoman Empire emerged the secular Turkish
republic under Kemal Ataturk, and--in spite of historical enmity and
rivalry--normal relations with Iran. After World War II, Britain and
the US allied with them and Iraq and Pakistan against an expanding
Soviet Russia, with Turkey seemingly an unsinkable NATO aircraft
carrier armed with a million men. Turkey's relations with Iran after
Khomeini's 1979 revolution sank, as Tehran quit all western alliances
and old strategic and religious suspicions reemerged. Ankara remained
by-and-large neutral in the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war.
Now Ankara is returning to the Middle East and Muslim world, a process
started by the first ever Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan,
whose short-lived coalition government was shown the door by the
military in 1997. Erbakan had mentored current Turkish Premier Recep
Tayyip Erdogan before the establishment of a less Islamic and more
"acceptable" AKP. Turkish-Iranian cooperation was thereby sealed by
the visit of Erdogan to Tehran in July 2004, preceded and followed by
high-level visits. Bilateral trade and economic ties always remained
strong, with Turkey a major transit route through Europe to Iran.
The Iraqi quagmire, incubating ethnic and sectarian civil war and
violent chaos, threatens to overflow beyond the borders of northern
Iraq (known as Kurdistan), with the US putting Iran in its crosshairs
for uranium enrichment (which was legitimate even under the
almost-dead Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty apartheid regime). With
different strategic perspectives in the region, the US-Turkish NATO
alliance has withered.
While uneasy with Iran's mastering of enrichment technology, Ankara
now faces a more imminent threat to its territorial integrity in the
Kurdish southeast, which is part of the Kurdish highlands straddling
Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Kirkuk in northern Iraq, which floats on
petroleum and has a substantial presence of Turkomans, Turkey's ethnic
cousins, was set aside by the British in 1919 after the
ceasefire. Like Washington's Operation Iraqi Freedom, the British also
promised the Istanbul's Arab subjects independence--only to subjugate
them. Eventually, after a long and bloody resistance, Iraq overthrew
the British-anointed Hashemite dynasty to become a secular republic.
Throughout history, ever-disunited Kurds could not create a strong
kingdom. Whatever their differences, Ottoman, Persian and Arab
empires joined handsto keep the Kurds from uniting, with far-off
powers--the British, Russians, and now the Americans--exploiting their
aspirations. Today, however, the heady scent of
autonomy-towards-independence in north Iraq rouses similar hopes among
Turkey's Kurds. Harmonization of Turkey's political structure and laws
with EU norms has helped to fulfill many of the Kurds' cultural and
linguistic demands, the raison d'etre for the PKK rebellion in the
southeast that hascost more than 35,000 lives since 1984, including
the lives of 5,000 Turkish soldiers, and laid the region to
waste. Still, PKK cadres have sheltered in the northern Iraqi
mountains since the end of the 1991 war, and have mounted many attacks
inside Turkey, killing soldiers and civilians.
With the US unwilling and unable to take action against the PKK,
Turkish armed forces, reemerging again as a force in Turkey's
politics, have amassed a quarter of a million troops in its
southeast. Before the 2003 invasion, Turkish leaders revived their old
claims over Kirkuk, but have not repeated them after seeing the fierce
Iraqi resistance. Kurds in northern Iraq reportedly trained by Israel
and now the US have been sent to do reconnaissance and stir trouble in
Iran, which has retaliated with bombings inside northern Iraq. So,
indeed, has Turkey.
Another important change in these equations is the fast decline in
Turkish-Israeli ties from almost ally-level, with joint military
exercisesand defense hardware ties, to a situation where Erdogan,
incensed by Israel's meddling in north Iraq, referred to Israeli
actions in Gaza and the West Bank as "state terrorism." Ankara also
hosted a Hamas delegation after its recent electoral victory in
Palestine. Relations between Turkey and Syria, torn by abiding
disputes over the sharing of Euphrates water, Syrian claims to
Turkey's Antakya province and Damascus' brief tolerance of PKK
training camps in Syrian-controlled Lebanese territory, have warmed,
despite the subsequent US disapproval. Turkey, while improving its
own relations with Moscow, has not objected to Russia's return to
Syria, and has revived Russian military cooperation against vehement
Israeli and US protests.
Ankara and Tehran need to cooperate to survive. No one can predict the
catastrophic consequences if the civil war sucks in Iraq's other
neighbors. Whatever blood Washington might spill, US troops must
eventually withdraw. Federations are hair-brained schemes for the
region, where the Hama "rule or die" philosophy prevails. The Sunni
minority in Iraq has been in control for centuries, much as the 12
percent Shi'ite Alawite elite has ruled over theSyrian Sunni majority
since the 1960s. Further, the inner unity of the autonomousnorth Iraqi
Kurdish state, already flexing its muscles through a regional
government, army and Kurdish Peshmarga militia, is ephemeral and
fragile for all its tall talk.
Whether or not Iraq is to split into Sunni and Shi'ite Arab states,
with Kurdistan in the north, will depend on the depth of Iraqi
nationalism 80 years on. Only a fierce nationalist Iraqi resistance,
with even more bloodshed, can keep Iraq united.
After US war fatigue and retreat, Turkey, Iran, and others (including
Russia, now back in the region bearing missiles for Damascus and
nuclear plants and military arms, as well as UN Security Council
support for Tehran) will have a difficult task in stabilizing the
region. If the US implements its irrational military option against
Iran, then all bets are off on any predictions for the Middle East and
beyond. Did the US foresee the outcome of its ill-planned venture to
grab Iraqi oil and control the region's resources? Or, for that
matter, did those who initiated the two world wars predict the
outcome?
At the end of the day, Turkey seeks to be a conduit for the export of
Iran's oil and gas to the West, serving the EU's increasing appetite,
and as the only alternative to the Russian gas and oil monopoly. The
Azeri and Caspian Sea crude transport to the Mediterranean will close
this year due to the US-financed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline--built
to keep Russia and Iran out. But this would be just one more East-West
strategic fault line.
Published first on 18/5/2006 � _bitterlemons-international.org_
(http://bitterlem ons-international.org/)
K. Gajendra Singh served as Indian ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan in
1992-96. Prior to that, he served as ambassador to Jordan (during the 1990-91
Gulf war), Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundationfor
Indo-Turkic Studies.
The author submitted this article for publication at Al-Jazeerah on May 20,
2006.