FROM ANKARA TO TEHRAN; THE “PERSIAN-OTTOMAN” RIVALRY IS BACK
by Yeghig Tashjian
New Eastern Politics
Aug 29 2012
Turkish-Iranian rivalry goes back centuries, to the Ottoman sultans
and Persian shahs. The tensions somehow decreased in the 20th century
due to Turkey’s isolationist foreign policy which left a power
vacuum in the Middle East. As AKP reached to power in Turkey and the
country’s economic and political influence grew in the region and as
the Sunni-Baathists were overthrown from Iraq and in the absence of
united Arab front against Israel, two regional countries tried to shape
the balance of power in the region. As the Arab Uprising broke up,
Iran and Turkey tried to contain each other and they turned Syria to
chess table, these tensions lead to the emergence of so called a new
“Sunni and Shia axis”. Therefore in order to assume the geopolitical
borders of the post-Arab Uprising one should ask and see what are the
cards that these two countries can play, on the domestic and regional
level, to deter each other and how costly and dangerous can it be to
both of them and others?
Among the numerous treaties between Persia and Ottoman Turkey, the
Treaty of Zuhab of 1639 is usually considered as the most important
one, as it fixed present Turkey-Iran and Iraq-Iran borders and crated
a balance of power between the two Middle Eastern giants in the
region. As this balance started to shake after the Arab Uprising,
the neo-Ottomans and neo-Persians started to redraw the political
map of the New Middle East, therefore the clash of interests between
the two rivals is inevitable, both of them can use dangerous cards
against each other that could threaten their domestic stability and
regional hegemony.
In August 2011, Turkish-Armenian columnist, Markar Esayan, in his
article “Iran Pulls the PKK Card” interpreted Iran’s message to Turkey
as follows: “To Turkey, you have a dominant role in the uprisings
in Syria, which is an indispensable ally to us in the region. If you
try to put pressure on Syria or start an operation against the Syrian
regime, we [Iran] will be strongly involved in the game with the PKK.
In regards to the PKK issue, we are capable of capturing its leader
and eliminating its activities; but we are also capable of making it
grow… If you give up on Syria, we will deal with the PKK together;
otherwise, we will become allies with the PKK.”[1] One of the cards
that Iran can use against Turkey on domestic level is the PKK card,
although this card sometimes can be dangerous because it may reflect
negatively on Iran too, since Iranian Kurds are also seen as a threat
to Iran’s territorial integrity. During the last decade Turkey and
Iran signed many agreements in order to help each other to fight
against Kurdish separatist movements. Things relatively changed as the
Turkish government started to support and arm the Syrian opposition;
Iran started to play the chess and used the PKK card as a pressure
on Turkey. In August 2012 Turkish Daily Hurriyet News published news
about the bomb that exploded in Turkish city Gazianteb that that killed
nine and injured 68 and quoted Hussein Nakavi, a spokesman for an
Iranian national security and foreign policy commission “Perhaps the
support of Turkey has not just been causing the deaths of innocent
people in Syria but has also been endangering its own security,”
and added “Turkey is experiencing internal crises now. Ankara has
to try to solve its own internal affairs instead of interfering and
giving hostile statements to Syria.”[2]
distribution of Alawites and Kurds in Turkey
What else can Iran do against Turkey? On the regional level Iran
lost in Bahrain, though still holding Iraq and Lebanon, but its
strategic ally the Syrian regime is in alarm, if Iran loses Syria,
the game will be over for the “Shia axis”. Thus Iran by the help of
the Assad regime can support the Turkish Alawites in Iskenderun region;
Alawits make up about 15% of the population in Turkey, while in Hatay
province they make about half the population[3], mostly seculars and
pro-Syrian regime, Turkish Alawites will join the secular opposition
Turkish Republican People’s Party (CHP), thus Erdogan’s government may
shake and be accused of sectarianism, once again Erdogan’s nightmare
will come to reality, and the seculars will rise again against their
government. As Turkey’s domestic stability is shaken the country
will not have enough resources to act in regional issues and its
hegemony may diminish. Moreover, in November 2011, shortly after
Turkey agreed to host an early warning radar as part of NATO’s missile
defense system, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division, stated that “should we be
threatened, we will target NATO’s missile defense shield in Turkey and
then hit the next targets.” Furthermore, Ali-Akbar, senior adviser to
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, argued that Turkey’s
model of “secular Islam” was a version of western liberal democracy
and unacceptable for countries going through an “Islamic awakening.”[4]
Competition over Syria has also mobilized fault lines in Iraq, where
Turkey and Iran have supporting opposing camps Since Iraq’s first
democratic elections in 2005, Iran has supported the Shiite-backed
Dawa party of Nuri al-Maliki, while Turkey has backed the secular
pan-Iraqi movement of Ayad Allawi. After 2010 elections, al-Maliki
formed a government, scoring a victory for Iran. In an interview
with al-Hurra television, al-Maliki said: “Turkey is unfortunately
playing a role which may lead to disaster and civil war in the region,
and Turkey itself will suffer because it has different sects and
ethnicities”[5].Turkey and Iran have also had competing interests in
Bahrain, where Iran supported the protestors (mainly Shi’as),while
Turkey has come out in support of the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy with
whom it hopes to pursue closer economic ties (In this case Turkey and
Iran were in a hypocritical position the first opposing democratic
change and the other supporting it unlike in Syria).
What are Turkey’s choices? What cards can the neo-Ottomans play? The
presence of 14 million ethnic Azeri in Iran[6] which is considered
Southern Azerbaijan by the Baku (Azerbaijan’s capital) government
has caused a great deal of friction between Tehran and Baku. Iran
has tried to suppress secessionist tendencies encouraged by the
pro-Turkish Baku government. Since the 1990’s Iran has sided with
Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan. Turkey on the other hand,
has close cultural and historical ties with Azerbaijan; it has backed
Azerbaijan politically, and has strong commercial ties with it.
Meanwhile, according to Today’s Zaman newspaper representatives of
Iranian Azeris have announced the establishment of an “International
South Azerbaijani Turks’ National Council,” which ultimately aims to
become independent from Iran. “Our ultimate aim is the independence
of Turks living in ‘Southern Azerbaijan.’ But we seek independence by
democratic, peaceful means, not through the use of weapons,” Cemal
Mehmethanoglu, the spokesperson of the council, declared at a press
conference held at the Azerbaijani Cultural Association in Ankara[7].
Furthermore the Israeli-Azeri military agreements alarmed the Islamic
Republic of Iran, therefore if Iranian Azeris succeeded to rebel and
fulfilled their dream of succession from Iran, the later will enter
into an era of chaos since the Kurds in the North-west, and the Baloch
in the South will join the Azeris and Iran’s territorial integrity will
be in question. On the regional ground, Turkey by the help of Western
powers and Arab Gulf states will surround Iran and impose diplomatic
pressure, already the Lebanese government is in weak position and
the al-Maliki government in Iraq is in tension with the Sunnis and
the Kurds, thus Iran’s allies in the region are losing ground and the
battle for Syria, which turned into a proxy war, will determine the
political border of the “New Middle East”. On the other hand Ankara
needs to regain its balance among its neighbors; Turkish FM Davutoglu’s
so called “zero-problem” foreign policy already turned into somehow
“zero-relation” policy especially with Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Therefore the struggle between the Ottomans and Persians once again
will shape the region, it may take long and turn into a bloody path but
in the end no one will be are able to overcome on the other because
both of them are composed of multiethnic communities and both need
each other to promote peace in the region. Both countries are slowly
showing their hands in the region’s oldest power game, the Ottoman
and Persian struggle is once again in front of our doors. But in the
Middle East there is no room for a “sultan of sultans” or a “shah of
shahs”, there should be both a sultan and a shah.
Yeghig Tashjian
——————————————————————————–
[1]MarkarEsayan, “Iran Pulls the PKK Card”,
,
16 August, 2011
[2] Gaziantep bomb the result of Turkey’s anti-Damascus stance:
Iranian official, , 22 August, 2012
[3] “In one of Turkey’s most religiously diverse
provinces, close ties with Syria fuel support for Assad regime”,
, 11/4/2012
[4] McCurdy Daphne, Danforth Nick,
“Turkey and Iran: A Fraying Relationship or Business as
Usual?”,,
11/4/2012
[5] “Iraqi PM Slams Turkey’s ‘interference’
“,, 17/2/2012
[6] Nadir Devlet , “Turkey and Greater Azerbaijan:A Card to Play?”,
German Marshall Fund of US, July 24,2012
[7] “Iranian Azeris set up
national council in Turkey,aspire for independence”,
,
29/8/2012