Jan 21 2022 12:09 Gmt+3
Turkey and Iran are set for closer ties under ultra-conservative Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, according to analyst Hossein Aghaie Joobani. Writing for the Atlantic Council on Thursday, Joobani said the current Iranian leadership was committed to compartmentalising relations with Turkey, allowing both countries to put regional differences aside to the benefit of shared interests.Ankara and Tehran are at odds over issues such as Syria, where they have steadfastly backed opposite sides in the conflict. Turkey remains one of the last international supporters of the armed Syrian opposition, while Iran has expended significant effort stabilising Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule. Turkish and Iranian proxies clashed around the last rebel stronghold in Syria’s Idlib province in February and March 2020, and the unstable situation is still a potential “tinderbox”, Joobani said.
Both countries are also competing for influence in Northern Iraq. This includes the disputed Sinjar province, which has seen a build-up of Iranian-backed Shia militias as Tehran seeks to secure a permanent presence close to the Syrian border. Meanwhile, Turkey has launched several attacks on fighters in the area it says are linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group it has been embroiled in an internal conflict with since the 1980s.
Despite these differences, Joobani said bilateral links between Turkey and Iran were likely to benefit from the “Neighbours First” policy of the new Raisi administration, which seeks to reduce regional tensions. The result could be a significant increase in trade between the two neighbours, which was only worth $3.4 billion in 2020, he added.
Raisi’s outreach efforts are also likely to include rebuilding relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the analyst said. This matches Turkey own steps to end it animosity with the Gulf states, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leading a diplomatic charm offensive in recent months.
However, Joobani said these shifting regional dynamics could pose problems down the line for Turkey and Iran. “This is simply because the potential depressurising effects of a Tehran-Riyadh détente may result in further aggravation of geopolitical competition between Tehran and Ankara somewhere else in the region,” he said. In the meantime, however, the analyst said both Turkey and Iran were likely to “maintain their compartmentalisation strategy so that divergences of interests at the regional level do not irreparably harm the core of bilateral relations”.
Content retrieved from: https://ahval.io/iran-turkey/turkey-and-iran-set-closer-ties-analyst-says.
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