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Turkey and Iran: Towards a Renewed Partnership?
- Kemal İnat
- 17 Eki 2017
- 3 dakikada okunur
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s latest visit to Iran put a spotlight on Turkey-Iran relations across the Middle East. Prior to Erdoğan’s visit, Iranian Chief of General Staff Gen. Mohammad Bagheri’s Turkey visit in August and Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar’s return visit to Iran indicated that security issues stand out as the primary concern of the relations between two countries in the recent period. Bagheri’s visit was also significant since the military chiefs of the two countries had not visited each other since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
The issues of Iraq, Syria and the outlawed PKK have been highlighted in these meetings between Turkey and Iran. Confronting each other in the civil wars and power struggles taking place in Syria and Iraq, Ankara and Tehran have seen that the picture emerging while the cloud of dust spread by Daesh in Syria and Iraq is about to dissolve, constitutes a serious threat to both countries’ security-related interests. This threat, which mainly consists of the PKK, its Syrian offshoot PYD and the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), is evidently jeopardizing the territorial integrity of Turkey and Iran aside from Iraq and Syria. Separatist pro-Kurdish movements started posing enormous danger to Ankara and Tehran as some circles in the U.S. and other Western states assumed that Turkey and Iran could be restricted, and possibly divided by supporting the PKK and its counterparts. This assumption shaped their policies regarding the Middle East.
The independence vote organized by the Barzani administration in northern Iraq also made it clear that this danger is not limited to the PKK and its counterparts. The acquisitions of pro-Kurdish movements in Iraq and Syria, thanks to the support given to them by some groups in the West in line with their Middle East policies, forced Turkey and Iran to set divergences aside and to cooperate on security issues. The recent visits paid by President Erdoğan and the two generals are required to be evaluated as steps taken in this respect.
While lately Turkey and Iran have been impelled to cooperate in the face of a common threat, security relations between the two countries have a problematic history. Although there has been no war for hundreds of years that redefined borders between the two countries, the relations between Turkey and Iran have long been strained. One of the main reasons for this tension is because Ankara and Tehran have accused each other of abetting terrorism: while on some occasions Turkey accused the Tehran administration of supporting the PKK, Iran on the other hand accused Ankara of siding with terrorist groups that pose a threat to Iran, for instance the People’s Mojahedin Organization.
Although Iran has had to fight against the PJAK, an offshoot of the PKK within its domestic boundaries, Tehran has been driven to adopt wrong policies with regard to its fight against terrorism, as it has occasionally regarded Turkey as a bigger threat than the PKK and PJAK.
More, Iran also followed policies that were interpreted as a support to the PKK by Turkey and abstained from siding with Ankara in its fight against the terrorist organization.
This stance is the mere outcome of not comprehending the fact that cooperating with Turkey, an important regional power in the Middle East, is key to becoming a global actor for Iran. Embarking on a power struggle with Ankara will only divert Tehran from this objective.
As the power struggle between two countries with regard to Syria and Iraq led to the consolidation of the PKK, which threatens both countries’ territorial integrity, they have been obliged to look for new ways of cooperation. Time will illustrate as to whether Ankara and Tehran will set aside their centuries-old lack of trust and manage to ensure a close alliance. The two parties do not need to experience a catastrophe similar to the World War II in order to lean towards a cooperation that is reminiscent of the France-Germany partnership. The turmoil caused by the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars and the growing threat of the PKK, PYD and PJAK as a consequence of the wars must be a sufficient reason for this cooperation.
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