Turkey Battles Iran In Strategic Chess Game

April 26, 2015  

Turkey has been bouncing between the interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Saudis tried to draw Turkey into its military coalition against the Iranian-sponsored Houthis of Yemen, but Turkey has also been seeking to expand its economic relationship with the Iranians.

Does Turkey feel like it has fallen behind Iran in terms of regional power?

“It does seem that with developments in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as the progress in the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (and especially if the economic sanctions will be removed), Iran is on a role and this is somewhat alarming for Turkey,” says Gallia Lindenstrauss of the Institute for National Security Studies.

“However, some claim that Iran is by now overextended in its commitments in the Middle East, hence it is very likely also to suffer setbacks.”

Turkey radically realigned its foreign policy several years ago in conjunction of its apparent ‘divorce’ from Israel. At first, it was a “Zero Problems” policy that assumed no matters of contention with Turkey’s neighbors. The major beneficiary of this was Bashar al-Assad, whose warm relationship with then-Prime Minister Erdogan evaporated at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War. Turkey backed virtually any rebel group fighting the Syrian government, yet did not have its eye on the ball as ISIS gained power, say some experts.

“The Islamic Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and ISIS – Turkey does not distinguish between them,” said Ephraim Inbar in an interview with Arutz Sheva in March. “They are helping ISIS with its wounded by treating them in Turkey and with weapons, and turning a blind eye to people coming (to Syria) from Europe. It has become a staging ground.”

Gabriel Mitchell, speaking with Arutz Sheva last month, said “When Turkey took its anti-Assad stance, the number of rebel groups that popped up in 2011-12 were numerous, diverse and disorganized. Most of them were also in Northern Syria. They decided to help them with logistical support and light arms.”

But as Iran gains unprecedented strategic advantages on account of the nuclear negotiations, the question might be if Turkey will see the Iranians as too big a threat to ignore now. If that is the case, the Turks might be inclined to return to its tacit, if not deliberate, support of ISIS as it fights Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria.

Will Turkey double down on support for groups in Syria that oppose Assad – maybe even ISIS?

“No, I think Turkey is not increasing its support. On the contrary, to some degree it seems to make it much harder to move volunteers and material support to these organizations through its border,” says Lindenstrauss. “I think that in addition to pressure from the West, there is more of an understanding in Turkey that this support is a double edged sword and may also harm it, even in the not-so-distant future.”

Just because the Turks are in a bind over the rise of both Iran and ISIS does not mean the country is disparaging its options. For one thing, Erdogan came out this week against ISIS and accused the terrorist organization of undermining Islam. But furthermore, says Lindenstrauss, Turkey still has a lot of potential power even if Iran is making massive strategic gains.

“Turkey is a big of enough regional actor that even a decline in its relative influence still does not fundamentally change the fact that it remains important to the West,” says Lindenstrauss.

The Turks might have an alternative – Iraqi Kurdistan. As counterintuitive as it may sound to people nominally familiar with the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, Iraqi Kurdistan (KRG) has become an indispensable economic partner for the Turks. In addition to the oil and gas pumping in from Iraq’s north, the Kurdish area has served as a stable buffer against the Iraqi Civil War of the 2000s and the ISIS advance now.

Others have argued that Kurdistan would be a bulwark against both ISIS and Iran, including activists like Sherkoh Abbas of the Syrian Kurdistan National Assembly. Turkey also lent $500 million to the KRG recently to ensure payment of civil servants. Even on a military level, when Turkey was unwilling to directly aid the Syrian Kurds fighting ISIS at Kobane because of their alleged affiliations to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), they allowed Iraqi Kurdish fighters from the Peshmerga to enter the fray and reinforce the Kurdish resistance in the city.

Erdogan’s stated purpose for visiting Iran early this month was economic – to lower the cost of gas that Turkey buys from the Iranians. But because of a number of economic factors unique to Iran and the global energy markets, that demand seems misplaced and impossible to achieve. Lindenstrauss and colleague Oded Eran wrote earlier this week, “Turkey could opt for importing more gas from Russia, which agreed to reduce the price of gas it sells to Turkey by 10.25 percent, but that would increase the dependency on Russia, which Turkey is loath to do. On the other hand, Iran is likely to become indispensable for Turkey with regard to ground transportation routes, as security concerns make it dangerous for Turkish trucks to pass through Syria and Iraq.”

What are the chances that Turkey might try to invest more in Kurdistan as an alternative energy supplier to Iran and Russia?

“It is not only Turkey’s own (growing) energy needs that push it to want to diversify its energy suppliers,” says Lindenstrauss, “but also its aspiration to become an energy hub. In this respect it is not so much about changing existing suppliers but rather to add to them new ones.”


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