President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Ottoman endgame
Old accounts
Ankara’s long-standing plans to seize not only Northern Syria (“How the Turks staged a “circumcision” for Syria in 1939”), but also Iraqi Kurdistan (IK), that is, Northern Iraq, have hardly been archived. At least, plans have been made public more than once to ensure Turkey's indefinite control over this region.
This is strategically important given its oil and gas resources and transit oil pipelines connected to the ports of Turkey (Ceyhan, Iskenderun, Yumurtalyk). Turkish plans for almost direct expansion were especially clear during the February negotiations in Erbil between the head of the IC, Masoud Barzani, and the Turkish Minister of Defense, Yashar Gülen.
However, Turkey’s claims extend not only to this region, but also to almost all territories of other countries adjacent to Turkey... As for the mentioned negotiations, according to the official statement of the Kurdish authorities, the parties “discussed the political situation in the region, recent events in the Middle East and the ongoing threat of terrorism.”
Ankara's separate relations with Erbil clearly stimulate discussion of more global topics. Mentioned negotiations “also covered the topics of Turkey’s relations with Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, ways to expand ties between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey, emphasizing mutual interests and benefits from strengthening bilateral relations.” It is very significant in the reports that Kurdistan was not even designated as an Iraqi province.
As the Center for Arab Studies in Washington notes, Ankara is seeking by any means, using its fight against the Kurdistan Workers' Party operating in Turkey, to establish itself in Northern Iraq. First of all, to control oil and gas production there and the pumping of North Iraqi oil to Turkey and through Turkey.
If the public asks
Accordingly, the Turkish media often contains calls for greater military-political activity in this region. This is all the more possible since by mid-2024 Ankara will form a single governing body for those regions of Syria and Iraq into which Turkish troops invade at their own discretion and where the Turkish administration actually operates in a number of areas.
According to the mentioned center, “it’s no secret that Turkish support for the North Iraqi Kurds is part of its larger geopolitical calculations.”
And first of all, this is reflected in the energy, or more precisely, oil transit factor: “Turkey, with its growing energy needs, perceives Kirkuk as a key partner in ensuring energy security. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which runs between Iraq and Turkey, is a symbol of this partnership.”
Attention was also focused on the fact that “previously, Kurdish officials expressed concern about the daily shipment of 85 barrels of oil to Baghdad without receiving appropriate payments. As if Iraqi Kurdistan is a sovereign state...
It was noted in this regard that the KR authorities “most recently sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, warning that the very structural and economic integrity of Kurdistan without the mentioned payments is under threat.”
Iraq – united and indivisible?
In the context of known Turkish plans and actions in the same region, it is reasonable to assume that the said letter, embodying Erbil’s aspirations for a “pro-Turkish” separation from Baghdad, was initiated in Ankara. However, it is still risky for the Turkish side to act in this way.
After all, the very fact of stopping free supplies of Kurdish oil for general Iraqi needs would only confirm that Turkey is initiating the division of Iraq. The sending of that letter to Washington shows that the United States is directly or indirectly involved in combinations to dismember Iraq.
The well-known Turkish plan to create a transit corridor, including oil and gas transit, from Europe to the Persian Gulf by the end of the 2020s raises many questions about the integrity of Iraq. It could pass between the Iraqi port of Fao and Turkish transit arteries to the Balkans.
Officially, Iraq still supports this project. But Ankara does not specify how it plans to organize the management of such a large-scale corridor, and with what share of participation in this management the countries involved in this corridor. Or is “centralized” management from Ankara planned here?
Within the framework of this corridor, oil and gas pipelines are envisaged, among other things, from Southern Iraq - for now they operate to the Iraqi ports of Basra and Fao. This is why these pipelines planned by Turkey will be additionally linked to the pipelines of Iraqi Kurdistan.
There is hardly any need to explain where they are aimed - again, at the southeastern ports of Turkey.
Thus, it is Northern Iraq that will become the regulator of all-Iraqi oil/gas exports. And this can “distance” Kurdistan, Iraqi, of course, from Iraq as much as possible. If by the time the same corridor is actually created, this Iraqi region has not yet been separated from Baghdad...
Other plans, other cities
Meanwhile, Turkey today claims not only the lands of the Kurds in Iraq, but also, for example, the neighboring regions of Georgia, a number of the Aegean islands of Greece, and the northern region of Syria adjacent to Turkey. It is well known that Turkish troops have almost completely controlled northern Syria for several years.
At the same time, Ankara is not averse to taking over the transit oil pipelines from there to the Syrian and border Turkish ports. Periodic military conflicts between Turkey and Greece in the Aegean basin are also known, the economic background of which is extremely simple.
Meanwhile, on geographic maps published in Turkey after the collapse of the USSR, Georgian Adjara has long been listed as Turkish territory. At the same time, Recep Erdogan personally outlined in detail all of Ankara’s designated territorial claims in 2019:
“...Our physical boundaries are different from the boundaries in our heart. Is it possible to distinguish Rize (a region of Turkey bordering Adjara - author's note) from Batumi? Many historians believe that Turkey’s borders should include Cyprus, as well as Aleppo (Syrian), Mosul (Iraqi), Thessaloniki, and Batumi. Only by losing our independence will we lose interest in these territories.”
It remains to remember that Aleppo is a Syrian city, Mosul is in Iraq, Thessaloniki is in Greece, and Batumi is in Georgia. Northern Cyprus has been a separatist republic since 1974, recognized only by Turkey, but Erdogan, by the way, is talking about Cyprus as a whole...
Therefore, not only and not so much for the Turks themselves, but for outside observers, it would also be nice to accurately determine whether these are still complaints or already quite specific plans?
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