{"id":27977,"date":"2019-01-04T03:23:46","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T03:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27977"},"modified":"2019-01-04T03:23:46","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T03:23:46","slug":"turkey-iraq-agree-to-boost-counterterror-cooperation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27977","title":{"rendered":"Turkey, Iraq agree to boost counterterror cooperation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nANKARA: Iraqi President Barham Salih\u2019s first official visit to Turkey\u2019s capital since his election in October indicates an emphasis on cooperating against terrorism, experts say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAt a joint press conference, he said relations with Turkey will be \u201cshoulder to shoulder, in full solidarity,\u201d adding that he expects Ankara to contribute to reconstructing Iraqi regions where terrorism has been eliminated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAnkara aims to boost security cooperation with Baghdad, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the press conference, adding that \u201cthere\u2019s lots we can do with Iraq\u201d in that regard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMuhanad Seloom, associate lecturer in politics at Exeter University, said the issues of sharing water, Kurdish militancy and trade will frame bilateral relations for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI expect the Turkish government to continue seeking cooperation with the Iraqi federal government to end the presence of the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party) in Iraq, especially in areas outside the Kurdish Regional Government\u2019s (KRG) control,\u201d he told Arab News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHowever, the PKK\u2019s main camps are located inside Iraqi Kurdistan and on the borders \u2014 areas over which the central government in Baghdad has little control,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe central government, however, could provide Turkey with legal cover to continue its military incursions in Iraqi border areas to target PKK fighters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIn terms of the joint fight against Daesh, experts underline Turkey\u2019s reconstruction efforts in Iraq and ongoing intelligence cooperation between the two countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIn February 2018, Iraq secured about $25 billion at an international donors\u2019 conference in Kuwait, where Turkey pledged a credit facility of $5 billion. Major Turkish companies are expected to conduct reconstruction projects in war-torn areas of Iraq.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nLast year \u201cwitnessed several cases where Turkish and Iraqi intelligence services cooperated to arrest and extradite Iraqi citizens accused of terrorism offenses,\u201d Seloom said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nLast February, Ismail Alwan Salman Al-Ithawi, a top Daesh leader, was captured following cooperation between Turkish, Iraqi and US intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n

\nSeloom said another area of potential cooperation could be in Syria, in light of the possible withdrawal of US forces.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Iraqi prime minister has already expressed his desire to intervene militarily in Syria to make sure any potential Daesh resurgence doesn\u2019t spill over into Iraq,\u201d Seloom added.<\/p>\n

\nLast week, Iraqi fighter jets pounded strategic Daesh positions in eastern Syria, killing 30 of its commanders. In 2018, Iraq sentenced more than 600 foreigners over their links to Daesh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nBaghdad and Ankara boosted ties after the latter\u2019s forceful stance against the KRG\u2019s independence referendum in September 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nTurkey and Iraq are expected to continue their high-level strategic council meetings throughout the year. Iraq is one of Turkey\u2019s major trade partners, with bilateral trade at around $10.6 billion in 2017. The state-run Trade Bank of Iraq recently announced its plan to acquire a Turkish bank.<\/p>\n

\nLast year, Turkey conducted several cross-border operations into Iraq. Erdogan had vowed to expand the military campaigns to the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, and the town of Sinjar \u2014 PKK strongholds in northern Iraq \u2014 to prevent the group from setting up new headquarters in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nGalip Dalay, a visiting scholar at Oxford University and research director at Al-Sharq Forum, said Salih aims to develop good relations with regional actors, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSalih has a successful diplomatic background also among Iraqi Kurds, as well as with countries such as the US. He\u2019s trying to become the international face of Iraq and to initiate a regional rehabilitation,\u201d Dalay told Arab News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nTurkey has not yet lifted its ban on flights to and from the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan, citing security concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nCity officials are reportedly continuing to lobby Ankara to lift the ban, which is seen as a means of putting pressure on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the provincial administration, to halt its assistance to the PKK.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nDalay said Iraqi-Turkish cooperation against terrorist groups is unlikely to include the Syrian-Kurdish People\u2019s Protection Units (YPG) and its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAlthough he doesn\u2019t lean toward their militant position, Salih is ideologically close to the secular left-wing in Kurdish politics. He has close ties with the PYD and conducts backdoor diplomacy with it,\u201d Dalay said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIn October 2017, Iraq\u2019s federal government captured the oilfields of Kirkuk from the KRG. Before that, the oil-rich, semi-autonomous region was exporting crude oil to Ceyhan port on Turkey\u2019s Mediterranean coast \u2014 the only available outlet for exports from Kirkuk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe resumption of oil flows from Kirkuk following a tentative agreement in November was key for countries to reduce their reliance on Iranian crude oil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIraq\u2019s prime minister recently said Baghdad will increase oil exports from Kirkuk to Ceyhan from 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) currently to 100,000 bpd, with revenues from these exports going to the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nDalay said: \u201cTurkey values the territorial integrity of Iraq and wouldn\u2019t prefer the dominance of any group in Kirkuk. But a sharing of power without excluding Kurds completely would be preferable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANKARA: Iraqi President Barham Salih\u2019s first official visit to Turkey\u2019s capital since his election in October indicates an emphasis on cooperating against terrorism, experts say.\u00a0 At a joint press conference, he said relations with Turkey will be \u201cshoulder to shoulder, in full solidarity,\u201d adding that he expects Ankara to contribute to reconstructing Iraqi regions where…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}