Moreover, a Kurdish minister said: "I'd rather be with Turkey than Iraq, because Iraq is undemocratic. [The best way forward is for] the Kurdistan region to join Turkey as part of a new Mosul vilayet and for Turkey to join the EU, with a solution for the situation of the Kurds in Turkey."The ICG report asserts that these developments have revived the notion of “Mosul vilayet,” Iraq's old Mosul province to which post-Ottoman Turkey laid claim, but this time the impetus is coming not from Turkish nationalist circles, but from the Kurdish side, even at senior levels.
Reading this report, one can get the impression that Kurdish groups in northern Iraq are extending a Mosul carrot to Turkey. Yet, we must note in advance that Turkey has no intention of eating this carrot.
In their tensions with the central government with respect to mandate, territory and underground resources, Kurdish groups are trying to play the Turkey card against Baghdad, but they are doing it wrong.
This implies that the Kurdish groups in northern Iraq are still unable to correctly understand Turkey's new position in the region.
What they must realize is that Turkey's northern Iraq policy is not independent from its Iraq policy. More generally, its Iraq policy cannot be seen as independent from its Middle East policy.
In other words, Turkey looks at the big picture in the Middle East in order to understand Iraq. This is what its new vision requires. This vision requires simultaneous assessment of relations with Iran or with Syria or with Lebanon or with Gulf countries. (At the time of the publication of this report, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was hosting the foreign ministers of six Gulf countries).
Of three basic principles that are strictly followed by Turkey in its policies toward the Middle East, one requires Turkey to keep political dialogue mechanisms open at all times, while another requires preservation of multiculturalism, and the last is the creation of mutual economic dependency.
In its vision concerning the region, Turkey aims to create a sphere of economic integration that may in turn have positive political results. These positive political results imply the creation of a peaceful atmosphere for everyone and the achievement of freedom and development for everyone.
In other words, Turkey's foreign policy does not allow irredentist policies. The new Turkey does not aim to go through old records with a view to find new maps.
In Turkey, both the political authority and the civilian-military bureaucracy are aware of the fact that the country's supreme interests entail a Turkey which has attained political stability, which gives priority to its economic development and which is at peace with its neighbors.
Turkey is well aware of the fact that being a regional power requires a country that is open to the world, a democratic, secular, social state governed by the rule of law. (The only ingredients lacking for this formula until now have been economic performance and problematic relations with neighboring countries. The process of addressing these problematic areas is under way.)
Both Barzani and Jalal Talabani must understand that there are no officials in Ankara who are dreaming about a Mosul vilayet.
The Kurds in northern Iraq should better understand that their future lies with the agreements they will arrive at with the Baghdad administration on reasonable grounds. They already know what the framework of these reasonable grounds is.
We do not know who is trying to give what message to whom with the bombs exploding in Kirkuk or Tal Afar in the last two weeks, but we know well about the message given by the Kurdistan Regional Government Constitution adopted last week by the Kurdish parliament in Arbil. Let us note how this move was perceived by Ankara: Kurds cannot keep their ambitions in tight check.
Why do you think Davutoğlu has been delaying his visit to Iraq for some time?
