Iran and Turkey

International and Regional Engagement in the Middle East

Marianna Charountaki

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786723802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de Oriente Medio

The foreign policies of Turkey and Iran seem increasingly to dictate the course of events in the Middle East. More recently, and especially following the Syrian crisis, the spotlight has turned to these states' dynamic re-entry onto the political stage, revealing them as key players with an international role in efforts towards the balance of power across the region.
This book traces the major determinants of Turkish and Iranian foreign policies and their influence on events in the Middle East. Based on an examination of these states' politics and policies since 1979, and using material gathered from interviews with leading political figures from Turkey, Iran and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Marianna Charountaki offers fresh insights into how we understand the contemporary global order. Of particular importance, this book shows, is the effect of both external and internal factors on foreign policy and how the interaction between state and non-state actors informs political decisions. In placing these issues in a theoretical framework, Marianna Charountaki pioneers a new conceptual map within International Relations. An interdisciplinary study that provides a fresh new perspective, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of International Relations, Politics, Foreign Policy, Kurdish and Middle East Studies.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Minor differences between Iran and Turkey would not affect long-standing relations between the two countries.¹

Reza Qelichkhan

INTRODUCTION

International relations in the Middle Eastern region have been changing at an unprecedented rate following landmark events such as the two Gulf Wars,² the so-called Arab Spring³ and the rise of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq, and the Levant (داعش, IS, formed in June, 2014). However, the study of the impact of such changes has been given insufficient prominence by the current literature, mainly because researchers have continued to emphasise the role of inter-state relations as the driving force behind the international relations system, although this is no longer the case. Recent events have strengthened the role of regional powers such as Turkey and Iran and increasingly shown that major international powers can no longer be regarded as the only dominant actors when it comes to determining the agenda in the international arena.

The main focus of this book is (1) to address the major factors that have influenced the process of formulating Iranian and Turkish foreign policies since their genesis (2) to trace their evolution chronologically (3) to examine their effect on the contemporary state of affairs in the Middle East vis-à-vis the regime changes that have drawn a sharp line between different systems of governance in Iran and Turkey, mainly from 1979 onwards and (4) to demonstrate how these determinants can be conceptualised within the frame of International Relations discipline.

Therefore, the aims of the book are: firstly, to explore these factors and assess their impact at the domestic, regional and international level, a topic largely overlooked by the current published literature;⁴ and secondly, to evaluate these findings within the framework of current IR theories. This research is especially important as the Middle Eastern region today, as so often in its history, has become a political crucible with regional and international repercussions on global affairs.

The period under examination is of particular significance as it sets the foundation for a season of great yet gradual change in the relations between Iran and Turkey starting with the rise of Iran as an Islamic State versus Turkey's secularism from 1979 until recently.

Likewise, the emergence of various forms of non-state entities, such as the Kurdistan Regional Government in 1992 (KRG), Hizbullah in 1985 (

, Hizbu-llāh – Party of God) in Lebanon, Syria's Autonomous Cantons (November, 2013, Rojavayê Kurdistan, Western Kurdistan) or even the KCK in 2007 (Koma Civakên Kurdistan, Group of Communities in Kurdistan founded by the PKK –Partiya Karkerên Kurdîstan, Kurdistan Workers' Party) in Turkey all indicate that we can no longer regard state powers as the sole key influences within the region and the broader international relations system and that such non-state actors have also played a part in setting the direction of events and policies.

Any thorough assessment of regional and global political developments must, of necessity, involve the consideration of multiple actors, examining their stake in the region and its conflicts, vis-à-vis the fading significance of power parity, by careful analysis of the possible paths through which they potentially contribute to either peace-building or conflict on both a regional and global scale. However, that is not to discount the historically important powers which, evidently, continue to play a significant role. During his visit to Turkey in August, 2012, the Iranian former Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi declared that ‘only if Turkey and Iran work together can they resolve the conflicts in the region, particularly the conflict in Syria, since without any of those great players the creation or the advent of peace and stability in the region, particularly in countries like Syria, will be very difficult’.⁵

Yet, the Middle Eastern political scenery has completely changed since the outbreak of the Arab Uprisings in December, 2010 which has had a knock-on effect on the previous main players, a situation exacerbated by the continuation of sectarian conflict in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Sectarianism in Syria and Turkey's Syrian policy undermined further the former Turkish Premier Ahmet Davutoğlu's ‘Strategic Depth’ doctrine founded on his ‘zero problems with neighbours’ principle, and as a consequence, has undoubtedly had a negative impact on Ankara's foreign policy.

Reza Altun referred to Turkish–Iranian relations as ‘the centre, the primary region, where the conflicts and wars are being conducted [with ultimate purpose] of reshaping the Middle Eastern region in accordance with the paradigm of capitalist modernity. These conflicts are not local but target the change of the current status quo.’⁶ Therefore, the objective of this book is not just to review, explain Turko-Iranian relations as a relation per se and analyse it as such, or to rehash its involvement in the context of war or peace – considering that the last major war fought was nearly 500 years ago at Chaldiran as a result of religious differences⁷ – but to look at the way Turkey and Iran's foreign policies have had to change and adapt as political and economic alliances within the region shift and change.

Conversely, the analysis of Middle Eastern politics necessarily reflects the nature of regional politics, and thus brings in the role of non-state actors in addition to state powers. The interactions between Turkey and Iran, two states that have shared a 499 km border since the 17th century, provide a crucial lens for observing the intrinsic nature of the politics of the region. In this sense, any discussion about Turkey and Iran reflects the broader concerns of Middle Eastern politics since both actors have been engaged in every single development of significance.

A similar perspective is represented in Altun's argument, ‘the present state of conflicts in the Middle East goes beyond Turkey and Iran but it is being conducted through them as main (f)actors in the emergence of these new political forms in the region’.⁸ This idea has even greater force when the situations of non-Arab states like Iran, Turkey and Israel are compared to the overall weakening of the Arab states. This seems to be the result perhaps of a greater desire for survival as the non-Arab states continue to move towards stronger engagement with other powers at the regional and international level; interestingly, a contradiction to the views expressed in many scholarly arguments.⁹ In addition, the impact of non-Arab states on regional politics is an under-explored dynamic in the field of IR and, as such, has not been analysed in a comprehensive way. Through examination of the surrounding events we can therefore understand that this is not merely an inter-state or a bilateral issue but one that has affected the whole region, especially over recent years, reaching its climax with the Syrian crisis (March 2011) where the religious-sectarian dimension along with foreign policy interests came prominently into play.¹⁰ More importantly still, it acted as the catalyst for Turkish and Iranian re-entry into regional and international politics as major powers whereas the Iraq War and its aftermath following US withdrawal from Iraq (December 2011) was significant, drawing Iran and Turkey closer together in regional politics, and giving them a more central role in determining regional and international developments.

Overall, the book's objective – built on my previous work which conducted an examination of IR theories together with in-depth critiques of them – is to pave the way for the introduction of a new theoretical approach, originally presented in my earlier book.¹¹ In this book, I plan to develop this process still further to examine international politics from a multi-actor perspective on both regional and global levels, and, in particular, shift the focus from predominantly concentrating on major international powers to the roles played by regional powers and non-state groups in order to reveal the significance of their interactions.¹² Specifically, the book aims to fill a gap within the International Relations discipline by placing the respective case study within a theoretical framework for the first time, an essential course of action given the heavy involvement of other non-state entities, powerful states and international organisations. This is of critical value as an interdisciplinary and comparative approach that has not been employed holistically in other works thus far.

LITERATURE REVIEW: A CRITIQUE

Robert Olson elects not to use IR theories ‘as there is no IR theory that addresses adequately’¹³ the theme under examination and thus is able to cover these polygonal interrelations. He therefore resorts to the ‘omni-balancing theory’ to explain Turkish and Iranian foreign policies¹⁴ but refers to the role of the Kurds without highlighting its importance as a factor in regional politics in its own right.¹⁵ Instead, Olson attempts to explain the Kurdish issue via the relations between the two respective states rather than as an independent influential factor¹⁶ that impacts on states' foreign policies, but rather considering ‘each Kurdish organisation [as a mere] proxy of its neighbour’.¹⁷

In fact Kurdish movements regularly implement the policy that best suits their own interests in regional politics,¹⁸ while, contrary to Olson who claims that ‘the trans-state Kurdish question and intra-state Kurdish problems have not affected larger geostrategic interests of either states’, we can definitely argue on the basis of the contemporary literature that the Kurdish issue has indeed significantly affected the policies of states such as Iran and Turkey and also the US.¹⁹

The ‘omni-balancing theory’ that the author adopts, also somewhat confusingly referred to by him as the ‘omnibalancing model’, focuses on the balance between internal and external threats which favours state leadership and the interests of elites and regimes at the expense of the state's centrality and even of non-state elites' or leaderships' impact on the decision making process, which seems rather an ‘either/or’ explanation. Therefore, this theory fails to give sufficient consideration to the role of the Kurds or even their leadership's ability to influence and bring about change, even though Olson himself had highlighted such factors as important in relation to the Kurds earlier. This contradiction is even more evident when the author aims to employ ‘the model with the exception that in the case of Turkey and Iran the states rather than the leaders should be the focus’ as opposed to his sub-theory's claims.²⁰ The model is also unable to adequately explain Ankara's 2012 new foreign policy dogma of ‘external threats’ where Turkish Armed Forces focus on the threats coming from outside rather than on internal ones as they did previously.²¹

On the contrary, the study undertaken in this book takes a different approach, and aims to diverge from the static state-centric and threat perceptions view dominant in the current literature where analysis is routinely pursued from the perspective of state relations and any role played by other factors is not given proper consideration. This is often the case with an analysis that has a focus on threat perception which can be an ideational reality as is the case in Olson's view which perceives Kurdish policies and actions as posing a threat to the respective regimes. Such an outlook weakens the analytical scope, especially when the role of the state, as a traditionally powerful and central actor of the international relations system that has been repeatedly proven in research carried out in a historical context, is already apparent. In addition, such a stance can distort the findings on how different factors of state, non-state or ideational and structural status impact, interact and influence those states' foreign policies whose stimuli, already known, are perceived to originate only from them, rather than being produced in response to other sources.

The case of the Kurdish movements is important when considered in this light and their role as mediators or, more indirectly, providing a connection through their relations with the host states is also recognised by Olson. However, in contrast to Olson, who focuses only in quite general terms on Turkish–Iranian policies toward the Kurdish issue,²² this book demonstrates the impact of Iranian foreign policy on Turkish policies and vice versa through the factors that influence these policies rather than merely making observations on the resultant episodes produced by these factors per se.

Suleyman Elik's book (published around the same time as Elliot Hentov's Asymmetry of Interest: Turkish-Iranian Relations since 1979) places state actors and the context in which they operate at the centre of the analysis. Elik presents a series of themes concerning Turkish–Iranian relations and divides them into chapters in the form of independent papers.

In contrast, this book moves away from the temptation to indulge in a detailed cataloguing of the events that have taken place between Iran and Turkey or be prompted by the respective factors influencing their relationship. Instead it aims to carry out a systematic chronological thematic division, which, while different from that of Elik or Hentov, is consistent with those dynamics that have shaped mutual foreign policies on the basis of the most significant historical episodes. Domestic and external determinants that need to be considered will be discussed as they arise.

Elik mainly concentrates on a revision of the ‘middle powers relations theory’, examining the diplomatic crises between the two states as well as the need for ‘securitisation of domestic politics to maintain regime survival’.²³ Elaborating on Olson's writings, he also perceives ‘religion and ideology as internal threats’.²⁴ On the other hand, this research project does take a more in-depth approach by pursuing a political analysis of the most important determinants to influence Turkish and Iranian relations as well as their impact upon Middle Eastern politics. Taking into consideration the way that today's scholars in the political sciences, particularly in the field of International Relations (IR), continually strive to move one step further in their arguments to effectively conceptualise the impact of the emergence of external and internal, regional, international, and global powers, and how they affect international relations, the theoretical objective of this book is thus to fill the gap between theory and practice as no previous research on the topic in question has been done up to this point. In doing this, the analysis aims to go beyond the traditional security and sociological approaches representing a kind of ‘micro level analysis on middle power states’²⁵ and is determined to avoid any generalisations represented in a predilection for broad statements such as: ‘middle powers have sufficient force … to maintain themselves without help from others’ and the like.²⁶

Pursuing the path of middle power theory, as in this case, is less helpful for three reasons. Although the study does make a valuable contribution through its incorporation of internal and non-measured factors of power and their effect on the extent and limits of those states' foreign policy behaviour regarding regional issues in tandem with the examining of outcomes of cooperat...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Determinants of Iranian–Turkish Relations: A Historical Review
• 3. Turkey–Iran Relations during the Cold War
• 4. Turkish–Iranian Relations in the 1990s: The Impact of Gulf War II and the Consolidation of the Kurdish Status
• 5. The Iraq War and the Rise of Non-state Actors (2001–2010)
• 6. Turkish–Iranian Relations under the Lens of the Syrian Crisis: A New Era for Middle Eastern Politics
• 7. Conclusions and Conceptualisations
• Appendix KCK Structure
• Notes
• Bibliography