Turkey, Iran vying for power in Iraq, Kurds ‘key’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met on Friday with Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Barzani then traveled to London on Monday to meet with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, back in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Turkish warplanes have launched a new offensive against “terrorists”, at least as Ankara claims.

Turkey’s attacks on the PKK in northern Iraq came after meetings with a KRG official. Turkey launches another power game in northern Iraq. It claims to be fighting the PKK, whose members it calls “terrorists”, but is setting up bases and using Iraqi airspace. Turkey has close ties to the KRG, the autonomous Kurdish region. Its interests there include energy trade and investment, and it wants to keep a close eye on the far-left PKK, which Turkey has been fighting for years.

“One of the areas in which Turkey and the KRG are cooperating is the fight against terrorism, especially given that the PKK terrorist group has strongholds in KRG-controlled areas of northern Iraq,” the Turkish Daily Sabah reported.

According to the Kurdish media Rudaw, “new clashes broke out between the Iraqi army and an armed group affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Sinjar to control the area,” PKK media reported, linking the incident to “Turkey’s new military operation against the PKK in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.” This means that there is now an ongoing operation throughout northern Iraq and new conflicts and instability.

According to the Jerusalem Post, while Turkey is making its moves, another operation is underway, led by Tehran. Iran wants to control Baghdad and secure more influence in Iraq. It uses pro-Iranian groups to achieve this. Fars News in Iraq reports that top Shiite parties met recently in Iraq, including participants in a pro-Iran meeting designed to end the current political crisis in Iraq.

“The statement described the transformation of the political process and the move towards practical steps to form a government and meet the demands of the Iraqi people as the main goal for which all Iraqi parties must fight,” Fars News reported.

Qais al-Hazali, secretary general of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq movement in Iraq, said earlier that the coordination framework ignored Iraqi interests. What it really means is that Iran does not want Iraq to be led by groups backed by Moqtada al-Sadr and his allies. Iran has its own allies in parliament in Iraq, led by Khadi al-Amiri and the Fatah Coalition, as well as those like Hazali and Nouri al-Maliki. Iran also has friends in the Kurdish region, within the PUK, the second largest Kurdish political party.

While Masrour Barzani was in Turkey and Britain, it appears that Iran wants to use its influence with the Rule of Law Coalition and the PUK and other factions. Iranian media note that the Sadr faction in parliament has 73 of the 329 seats, while the KDP under Barzani has 33 seats. “It is true that the Sadr faction won the most parliamentary seats in this election, but these seats are not enough to form a government and it must form a coalition with other political groups,” Fars News reported.

What follows may be that Iran is trying to find a way to continue to provoke controversy and create a wedge between the natural coalition formed between Sadr, the Sunni political elements and the KDP. Iran will use Maliki, Amiri, Hazali and others to do so. On the ground, meanwhile, pro-Iranian militias are increasingly threatening Turkish bases in northern Iraq, especially those near Basra. This means that Iran and Turkey are fighting for power in Iraq. The Kurds are a kind of hinge that both countries are pushing for, and the door to power in Iraq rests on that hinge.

Petros Kranias

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