Iraqi Kurdistan Independence Aspirations and the Neo-Ottomanist Turkey

Abstract

Traditionally and historically, modern Turkey has always been against the idea of an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq due to a fear of a spillover effect among Turkey’s own Kurdish population. However, after the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP, in Turkish) as a hegemonic power in after 2002, the relations between Ankara and Erbil have been significantly transformed as KRG has economically and politically become Turkey’s key strategic partner in the region. This chapter analyzes the ebb and flow in Turkey’s contemporary relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq within the context of the September 2017 Kurdish independence referendum, in particular, and the idea of an independent Kurdistan, in general. We argue that Turkey’s evolving relationship with the KRG under the rule of AKP depends on the domestic balance of power in Turkish politics, on the one hand, and the regional security context, on the other. Two key factors come along within this framework: 1) the decline of AKP’s capacity to politically survive by itself in turbulent domestic politics and thus reliance on Turkish nationalists’ support; 2) the breakout of Syria’s civil war, the emergence of the Islamic State and the rise of pan-Kurdish nationalism across Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. If the region was more promising in terms of stability and if the AKP government was not uneasy about its own political survival in Turkey, KRG’s independence move may not have led to such aggressive nationalist reaction by Ankara.