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Turkey’s Foreign Policy towards Iraq
57
engagement in Northern Iraq, resulting in the establishment of the Kurdish Regional
Government (KRG) in the wake of the invasion, has become an inseparable component
of this comprehensive approach.
Particularly from 2005 onwards, Turkey has launched numerous noteworthy political
and economic initiatives targeted at the KRG. The key figures of the Justice and
Development Party (JDP), the single political party in power in Turkish politics since
2002, have established close relations with leading figures in the KRG, have made many
diplomatic visits to Erbil and, more importantly, have been the initiators of huge economic
investments in the region.
12
It would not be an inaccurate reading of the history if one
stated that Turkey’s rapprochement with Kurdish leaders in Northern Iraq in the 2000s are
reminiscent of events in the 1990s. Conversely, the difference with respect to the relations
established this century is that they constitute a much more “institutionalized” framework
that has resulted in a pattern of continuity in Turkey’s foreign policy, as highlighted by
leading experts in the field.
13
Moreover, another important difference in Turkey’s relations with the KRG in the
2000s when compared with the 1990s is that the close linkage between domestic politics
and foreign policy that had appeared in Turkish decision makers’ minds in the 1990s
has acquired a concrete dimension and had a substantial impact on Turkish patterns of
behaviour. In that sense, the democratization package adopted by the Turkish government
towards its Kurdish population, known as the “Kurdish Opening”, and which started in
2009, should be accepted as a component of Turkey’s approach towards Iraq. Taking this
argument one step further, it would not be wrong to state that Turkey, by meeting some of
the political, social and cultural demands of its Kurdish population, has aimed to transmit
a message to the Kurdish populations of both Turkey and Iraq that it would be much more
beneficial for them to stay within the boundaries of those countries.
F
oreign
and domestic
policies
:
a delicate
balance
Turkey’s security concerns vis-à-vis Iraq are certainly behind the Kurdish Opening,
but its closer relations with the European Union also played an important role. Put
differently, it became clear that Turkey’s failing grade on the human rights issue in the EU
Commission’s yearly progress reports was a motivating factor to adopt a specific framework
of reforms to improve Kurds’ rights. This is because EU membership had become one
of Turkey’s main foreign policy goals in the 2000s. It is also true that the formation of
a customs union between Turkey and the EU in 1996 and the subsequent economic
changes in the traditional economic structure of the Turkish state in the 2000s served
to create “a trading state”, as put by Kirisci, i.e. a state in which national interests are not
12 Many studies have been published by leading scholars and experts on the Middle East focusing on
Turkey’s partnership with the KRG in the 2000s. See, for example, Barkey HJ (2011). Turkey and Iraq: the
making of a partnership.
Turkish Studies
. Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 663-674. See, from the same athor, Turkey’s
new engagement in Iraq: embracing Iraqi Kurdistan.
The United-States Institute of Peace Special Report
237
, May 2010.
13 Olson R (2005).
The goat and the butcher, nationalism and state formation in Kurdistan-Iraq since the
Iraqi War.
California: Mazda Publishers, pp. 12-15, 24.