Turkey and Iran vie for influence in greater Middle East region

It appears Turkey and Iran both have found themselves positioned in different camps with the latest developments in the Middle East. A hidden power struggle is what possibly will follow. It was less than a year ago when Turkish President Abdullah Gül visited Tehran, in February, when the leaders of the two countries expressed hopes for strengthening relations.

But then the Arab Spring came. Turkey’s choice of acting in line with the United States, and notably Turkey’s attitude towards Syria, has caused Iran to turn sour. To top it all off, when Turkey agreed to the construction of a NATO radar at Kürecik in Malatya province, Tehran started to express its disappointment at the highest level.

The striking thing about the statements coming from the Iranian side was the tone. The statements carried not only simple criticism but also a threatening tone towards Turkey.

According to Nüzhet Kandemir, a former Turkish ambassador and a current member of the  board at Bahçeşehir University’s international relations department, there is a hidden power struggle between Iran and Turkey, and this has intensified as Turkey has started to act as a leader in the region. In a wave of criticism from Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, referring to the NATO early warning system, criticized Turkey in a television address, saying: “We told our Turkish friends that it was not a correct job [decision] they made and that it’s to their detriment. Such shields can’t prevent the collapse of the Zionist regime.”

Özcan Alas, chairman of the Iran and Middle Eastern Trade Development Association, based in İstanbul and founded in 2009, argues that the Iranian people feel resentment towards Turkey because of its attitude towards Syria, which has been a close ally of Iran, and accuse Turkey of acting in favor of Israel.

Fortunately, however, the relationship between Turkey and Iran is not all doom and gloom. Two statements came on Wednesday from the Turkish and Iranian sides, confirming good relations, with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu announcing that Turkey and Iran have had extensive cooperation in combating terrorism, while the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Iran expressed the willingness by both sides to increase the trade volume between the two countries from today’s $10 billion to the level of $30 billion.

Although Turkey and Iran have a lot of grounds on which to cooperate -- the number of Iranians coming to Turkey last year was 2 million -- the two countries struggling for leadership in the region have also opposing interests. Iran is a major actor in Iraq, where it supports Shiite groups, whereas Turkey tends to support the secular movement while still maintaining good relations with Shiite elements. Iran has strategic ties with Syria, through which it supports Hezbollah in Lebanon. As recent statements from top Iranian officials show, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s suggestion that Egyptians should adopt a secular form of government was not well received in Iran and was countered by Yahya Safavi, who said, “Turkey’s secular system is not a good model.” So it’s also a struggle revolving around the political systems of the two countries.

Kandemir is of the opinion that Iran is more in control of Iraq than the US. Kandemir, who doesn’t think the NATO early warning system to be installed in Malatya would make any great difference for Iran given that Turkey is already hosting other NATO facilities having a similar capacity, does not expect any heated conflict between the two countries. As to the Turkic republics, Kandemir believes that Turkey is behind Iran and that Iran would maintain its position in the coming years as well.

Retired intelligence officer and strategist Mahir Kaynak’s scenario, on the other hand, is based more on heated conflict. Kaynak, who claims that an armed conflict over Iraq should be expected in the near future, says the function of the dissident movement in Syria is to cut down the influence of Iran on Syria. In this scenario, in the armed conflict the parties will be divided on a Shiite-Sunni axis. But the main aim of the US and Russia, the scenario’s owners according to Kaynak, will be to restrict the influence of the European Union and China in this region. And Turkey is expected to enter northern Iraq. The reason behind Turkey’s entry will not be the terrorist activities of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) but to contain the Iranian influence there. Kaynak adds that acting in cooperation with the US, Turkey’s regional policies will become dissimilar to those of Iran. Contrary to Kandemir, Kaynak foresees rather tense relations between Iran and Turkey in the coming years.

Hüsnü Mahalli, a Syrian journalist based in Turkey, thinks otherwise. He believes that the so-called conflict between Iran and Turkey exists only at a psychological level. The efforts to display an image of Iran and Turkey as if they were rivals, he claims, are of Western origin and the two countries do not need to become adversaries. “Why has the US decided to install the missile shield system in Malatya and not in Iraq or Saudi Arabia?” he asks. His mind is clear about the answer: The US wants to force Turkey to side with it.

What Kaynak foresees in his scenario is what Mahalli dreads most for the region: sectarian warfare. “The West has always wanted to ignite a sectarian war in the region, and the two probable actors in this scenario would be Turkey and Iran because these are big countries,” he explains.

In the near future we might come face-to-face with situations in which Turkey and Iran are positioned against each other. Should Turkey decide to enter Iraqi territory or intervene in Syria, Iran might express its discontent by giving its support to the PKK. In the case of Syria Iran would certainly not make do with a mild reaction because if Syria falls then Hizbullah, which is Iran’s staunch ally against Israel, falls and then as Mahalli puts it, “Iran knows that its turn has come.”

That’s why maybe the deputy head of Iran’s Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri was quoted on Iran’s state-run Press TV on Monday as saying, “Turkey should rethink its long-term strategic interests and draw lessons from the ‘bitter historical experiences’ of other countries.” Warning of “adverse consequences” Jazayeri also urged Turkey to reconsider its decision to host the NATO radar.

When looking at the picture in the region, in the final analysis, Turkey seems to have concluded that its best interests lie with acting together with the US, which means that Turkey’s relations with its eastern neighbor will follow a somewhat sour course in the near future. But Turkey and Iran, who have not fought a war since the Qasr-ı Shirin Treaty of 1639, in spite of their own ambitions, always find a balance in managing their ties.