Following his meetings in Baghdad, Davutoğlu is expected to visit northern Iraq, making him the first Turkish foreign minister to visit the region, where he will meet with Kurdish regional leader Massoud Barzani. The details of Baykal's trip are not yet clear. The visit of the main opposition leader in Turkey, who shows an interest in foreign policy and its effect on domestic policies, to Iraq carries separate importance. The year 2009 is very important for Iraq. A nationwide census will be held in October. With US troops withdrawing from the country, Iraq is facing an uncertain period where ethnicities, religions and religious sects will all compete to solidify their percentage of the overall population. Therefore the population census will hint at who will control Iraq in 2010 and who will influence the economy. The parliamentary elections that will be held in January, just months after the population census, will be another important milestone effecting Iraq's new era. Turkey has developed into a power with great potential in the region and its weight will be felt more in the Iraqi region and the Arab world in 2009 with the leadership of Davutoğlu, who is an authority on the Middle East. Throughout history, Iraq was the foundation of power struggles between Shiite Iran and Sunni Anatolia (the Seljuks and the Ottoman state) and was the border region between the eastern Mediterranean countries and Iran. This historic balance, altered by the US's invasion of Iraq, may be resettled if Turkey increases its influence over the country. The possibility of Iran, which has been a diplomatic nightmare for the US, Israel and the Arab countries, permanently settling in Iraq may be balanced with Turkey's influence over Iraq.
It is an interesting contradiction that Turkish intellectuals and politicians show intense interest in Iraqi Kurds but overlook other ethnicities in Iraq, especially Iraqi Türkmen. It is convenient to deal with Kurds or with organizations that use weapons to make their voices heard. Reconciliatory people such as the Türkmen are preferably seen as folkloric groups. Iraqi Türkmen are traditionally overshadowed because they are seen as extensions of the Ottoman state and Turkey.
Iraqi Türkmen have been unable to share with the world their losses or the oppression they experienced both during Saddam Hussein's reign and America's occupation. Their screams have always been in silence. They were a people left in the shadows. However, Iraqi Türkmen are actually a very educated people. They do not like fighting; they are pacifist. They sincerely believe in Iraq's unity, increased prosperity and democratization. They want to be not a minority but a majority in the society and to add a positive color to a democratic Iraq by preserving their identities. Iraq Türkmen were like this in the past as well.
From the US's perspective, Iraq may be seen as a country of war and oil; from the perspective of Arab countries, Iraq maybe seen as an Arab geography riddled with chaos. However, from the perspective of Turkey, which coexisted with Iraq for nearly 500 years under the rule of the Ottoman state, Iraq seems a friendly country with which it shares religious, linguistic, ethnic and historic ties. It is for this reason that Iraq's unity, its relief from terror and instability, its increase in prosperity and its equality to all political groups, ethnicities, religions and religious sects is integral to Turkey.
