 |
Turkey, Iraq eye closer ties with deals on gas, PKK
Relations between Ankara and Baghdad have been strained in the past by the presence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists who use northern Iraq as a base to launch attacks on southeast Turkey.
But trade and diplomatic ties have bloomed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein and as regional heavyweight Turkey has sought to expand its influence in the Middle East under Erdoğan's AK Party government.
The two countries have estimated trade worth more than $5 billion but there is enormous potential for the future as European Union-candidate Turkey aims to position itself as a vital energy and trade corridor with its eastern neighbours, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and the South Caucasus.
Erdoğan flew to Baghdad accompanied by nine ministers who planned to meet their Iraqi counterparts and sign a total of 44 agreements, including a memorandum of understanding to transport Iraqi natural gas to Europe via Turkey, Turkish officials said.
They said they also expected talks on boosting cooperation in the fight against the terrorist PKK.
Agreements on water sharing, transportation, health, agriculture, education and engineering were also due to be signed under the so-called High Strategic Collaboration meeting.
"The fundamental aim of the High Strategic Collaboration in our region is the establishment of comprehensive economic unity and cooperation," Erdoğan said ahead of the trip in Ankara.
Turkey and Syria held a similar meeting on Tuesday.
ENERGY CORRIDOR
Under international sanctions imposed on Saddam, trade between Turkey and Iraq choked to a trickle. Turkey's complaint that Baghdad was doing little to crack down on PKK terrorists also poisoned ties.
 |
But trade improved dramatically after the 2003 invasion, with Turkish companies playing a leading role in reconstruction.
Ankara and Baghdad now hold periodic security meetings with the United States to cooperate on fighting the outlawed PKK.
Turkey and four EU countries signed a transit deal in July for the $7.9-billion-euro EU-backed Nabucco pipeline to carry Caspian and Middle Eastern gas to central Europe, aiming to cut dependency on Russia. Iraq has said it wants to be a supplier.
Turkish officials said the two countries also planned to extend an agreement over an Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline, complete new power lines and boost the capacity of existing ones between the two countries.
In September, Turkey agreed to release more water from the Euphrates river to drought-ravaged Iraq, increasing the outflow to between 450 and 500 cubic metres per second until Oct. 20.
Only a few months before that, Iraqi lawmakers agreed to block any pact signed with Turkey, Iran or Syria that did not include a clause giving Iraq a fairer share of water resources.
"We welcome this visit, and we look for positive relations between the two countries. But we remind the government of Iraq to include in the agreements signed with Turkey an article to ensure Iraq's share of the Tigris and Euphrates waters," Karim al-Yaqubi, a member of parliament's water committee, told Reuters by telephone.
PKK terrorists have been fighting for 25 years in southeast Turkey. Turkey has bombed and shelled PKK bases in northern Iraq using intelligence provided by Washington. Turkey's attacks are believed to have greatly weakened the terrorists, whose attacks on Turkey have dropped in recent months.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ |  |
||
| Google kidnaps Gül! | |||
| İHSAN YILMAZ |  |
||
| The Egyptian elections, Islam and Islamists | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| There is need for a new initiative | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Operational errors | |||
| HASAN KANBOLAT |  |
||
| Are Russian tourists being discouraged from visiting Turkey? | |||
| CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON |  |
||
| The modern ‘Great Game’: women’s role and status | |||
| KLAUS JURGENS |  |
||
| Back to the ’80s | |||
| KATHY HAMILTON |  |
||
| Random acts of violence | |||
| MERVE BÜŞRA ÖZTÜRK |  |
||
| Adding insult to injury in Uludere | |||
| NICOLE POPE |  |
||
| Shifting responsibility | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| ‘Errorism’ | |||
| ORHAN MİROĞLU |  |
||
| ‘Strategic vision’ | |||
| ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ |  |
||
| Turkey through Amnesty International’s eyes | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
