The Transforming Relations of Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan (1991–2014) – Part 1.

Abstract

This article intends to analyse the political relations between the Iraqi Kurds and the government of Turkey. It aims to explain the fluctuations and shifts in their relations with a special attention to the internal (Turkish, Iraqi Kurdish) and external (regional, global) causes. This article is the first part of a broader study, and deals with the period between 1991 and 2008. One can distinguish two periods within this timeframe: the beginning of the Turkish–Iraqi Kurdish relations can be linked to 1991 when the Iraqi Kurds established a de facto state that started to organise its international relations. Since Ankara saw every positive political development of the Kurds (both in Iraq and Turkey) as a threat, Turkey had an ambivalent relationship with the Iraqi Kurds in the 1990s. Paradoxically, however, there were examples of temporary cooperation between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds against the most important Kurdish separatist
group of Turkey, the PKK, which established recruiting areas in northeastern Iraq. In
the second period, following the American intervention in 2003, Turkish foreign policy
secluded itself from forming a good relationship with the Iraqi Kurds who managed to
obtain an autonomous territory within the new Iraq. This development led to a total
refusal by Ankara and strengthened the securitised approach in Turkey.