|
ISTANBUL, Turkey -The prime minister of Iraq's Kurdistan autonomousregion is visiting Turkey - his first trip there since takingoffice in March. The visit is expected to build on the growingrapprochement between Turkey and Iraq's Kurds. That process isbeing enhanced by deepening crises in Iraq and and mutual neighborSyria. Political analysts in Turkey see the visit by Iraqi Kurdish PrimeMinister Nechirvan Barzani as a sign of the growing importance ofhis Turkish neighbor. Ankara has responded by laying out the red carpet with meetingswith the Turkish president, prime minister and foreign minister. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal says the Iraqi Kurdsare seen as an important ally. "The Iraqi Kurds are playing an international role legally andlegitimately in all Iraqi politics and we are talking with them onmany issues, the political situation in Iraq and in theregion," he said. Barzani's visit comes as tensions continue to rise between IraqiKurds and Sunnis and the country's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki,a Shi'ite, over the distribution of power and control of resources. Tensions have also risen between Turkey and Iraq's centralgovernment. International relations expert Soli Ozel, a columnist for theTurkish newspaper Haberturk, says these current tensions withBaghdad are driving the warming relations between Ankara and theIraqi Kurds. "The fact that relations with Baghdad are rotten, it nowtranspires that the Kurds are the Turks' natural allies inIraq," said Ozel. "They are our second export market, andpeople say if you include the informal trade, they may very well bethe first export market. And their gas and oil is going to globalmarkets via Turkey. Therefore, we have to discuss what the IraqiKurds do, with very different words and with a very differentapproach, and this is what happening." The transformation in relations is a marked shift from the past.Only a few years ago, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogansaid Iraqi Kurdish regional President Masoud Barzani was a"bandit." The Turkish government believed the IraqiKurds were not doing enough to stop the Kurdish rebel group, thePKK, from operating from northern Iraq. The PKK is fighting theTurkish state for greater Kurdish rights. Political observers say Ankara's greatest fear was that the IraqiKurds would declare an independent state, possibly incitingTurkey's own Kurdish minority to similar demands. But former senior Turkish diplomat Sinan Ulgen says the recentvisit of Iraqi Kurdistan's President Barzani shows this fear haseased. "When Barzani came to Ankara a few weeks ago, he madereference to a possible independence of the Kurdish region ifMaliki continues to operate in the authoritarian way that he isoperating," said Ulgen. "Even that statement, which wasunthinkable a couple of years ago for the Turkish policymakers notto react to, has not really led to any sort of reaction fromAnkara. That shows how much [relations] have changed." The conflict in Syria is also providing common ground between IraqiKurds and Turkey. Syrian Kurdish groups have been meeting in theIraqi Kurdish region, and Ankara is lobbying the Iraqi Kurds to usetheir influence to persuade them to unite with the Syrianopposition against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But international relations expert Ozel remains skeptical whetherthe Iraqi Kurds can deliver. "With the Syrian Kurds, the ones who are more influential arenot Barzani people, but the PKK," said Ozel. The thing isTurkey wants to subcontract too many things to Barzani, and I don'tthink it's going to wash." The prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan is expected to rejectTurkey's calls to remove PKK bases from the region. But politicalobservers say the Iraqi Kurdish visit to Turkey will emphasize thegrowing importance of the relationship and that both sides will belooking to build on what unites them - rather than what dividesthem. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Custom Made Book Shelves Manufacturer , China Grocery Store Shelves for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Grocery Store Shelves.
Related Articles -
Custom Made Book Shelves Manufacturer, China Grocery Store Shelves,
|
