Ottomans, Erdoğan, and Iran: 10 Glimpses of a Close Rivalry

Iran and Turkey have been rivals for centuries, and numerous fault lines divide them: they descend from the Persian and Ottoman empires, which warred throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries; Turkey is a Sunni majority country, while Iran has a Shia majority; Turkey is nominally secular, while Iran is Islamist; Turkey belongs to NATO, while the Islamic Republic defines itself by antipathy toward the West. Yet they also have much in common: they have similar-sized populations, both of which include a substantial Kurdish minority, and both are non-Arab powers that aspire to influence the Greater Middle East. Following the Iranian Revolution, both parties limited their rivalry in favor of economic considerations, with Turkey taking the diplomatic lead.

 

1. Turkey was the only NATO member to reach out to Iran after the revolution.

Although Turkey has belonged since 1952 to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a Cold War-oriented defensive alliance of western nations, it was quick to recognize Khomeini’s regime in Iran following the 1979 revolution. While internally Turkey reacted with a degree of alarm (the military coup carried out by Turkish officers in 1980, for example, was partly influenced by events in Iran) Turkey worked hard to defuse Iranian suspicions and animosity, and Turkey’s ambassador was the first foreign ambassador to meet Khomeini after the revolution.

 

2. Turkey stayed neutral during the Iran-Iraq War, but exploited Iran.

Turkey is the only country that borders both Iran and Iraq, and it stayed neutral throughout the Iran-Iraq conflict. The war benefitted Turkey, which was going through an economic crisis at the time, since it allowed it to cement new economic relations with Iran, and to exploit its wartime vulnerabilities. As the war hindered trade through the Persian Gulf, Turkey became Iran’s only outlet for oil and gas, and Iran came to depend upon Turkish goods. Turkey forced Iran into economic concessions, such as a barter arrangement whereby it paid for Iranian energy supplies with Turkish white goods priced at European prices. 

 

3. Turkey suspected Iran of supporting the PKK.

Turkey has long suspected ties between Iran and the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a militant group that opposes Turkish dominance. Relations between Iran and the PKK appeared to be at their height in in the 1990s, when the PKK was based in Syria (a close ally of Iran), and Turkey made informal allegations that Iran supported the group. In 1999, however, Turkey captured PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, and the threat it perceived from Syria and Iran declined. Nevertheless, Turkey remains suspicious of an apparent undeclared ceasefire in recent years between the Iranian government and PJAK, the Iranian arm of the PKK, with which Iran has been in conflict since 2004.

 

4. Iran clashed with Turkey over headscarf politics.

In 1999, pro-government students in Tehran caused a diplomatic rift with Turkey when they protested in support of a Turkish Islamist parliamentary deputy, Merve Kavakçı. Kavakçı, a newly elected member of the Virtue Party, had challenged Turkey’s secular norms by wearing her headscarf—a garment then banned in public institutions—to the Turkish parliament. In response, Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit had refused to accept her oath of office. Following the Tehran demonstration, Turkey summoned the Iranian ambassador to complain. Kavakçı herself rejected Iranian support, remarking that her party “wanted no support from a country such as Iran where there is no freedom.” Turkey lifted its headscarf ban in 2013.

 

5. The Revolutionary Guards closed the Turkish-run Imam Khomeini Airport the day it opened.

In May 2004 the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps closed the newly-opened Imam Khomeini International Airport, claiming that TAV, the Turkish–Austrian consortium the Iranian government had contracted to operate the airport represented a security risk. Planes in flight were diverted to Mehrabad airport, and one was told to land in Isfahan. The move damaged relations with Turkey, and showed up the weakness of President Mohammad Khatami who was forced to cancel an official visit. While conservatives in the Iranian parliament implied that TAV’s dealings with Israel prompted the takeover, outside observers pointed to the IRGC’s economic motives, including a favored Iranian firm’s loss of the airport contract to TAV, and the IRGC’s alleged smuggling interests.

 

6. Erdoğan supported Ahmadinejad against the Green Movement.

Turkey’s socially conservative, Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party, led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, pursued a more open policy toward Iran’s leadership. Erdoğan was quick to congratulate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he began his second presidential term following massive protests against vote rigging in 2009. The Turkish government, keen to avoid regional instability, likely chose to see the Green Movement as a western-inspired, western-oriented attempt to undermine the Islamic Republic.

 

7. Turkey is the easiest place for Iranians to witness social freedoms.

Turkey is one of the few countries to which Iranians can travel, visa-free, to experience a more outwardly secular Muslim society. After Iran crushed the Green Movement in 2009, many disillusioned Iranian voters and regime critics fled to Turkey, where they formed an émigré community. Turkish soap operas, meanwhile, bear major cultural influence in Iran, where viewers receive them via illegal satellite dishes or buy them in the form of pirated DVDs or USBs.

 

8. Turkey has offered a degree of support to Iran’s nuclear program.

Turkey takes a relaxed, even protective attitude toward Iran’s nuclear program. In 2010 it proposed, along with Brazil, a fuel swap arrangement that would have allowed Iran to avoid sanctions under UN Security Council Resolution 1929. Turkey backs the right of all signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty—of which Iran is one—to enrich uranium. But as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, it accepts restrictions on the export of uranium enrichment and reprocessing equipment to Iran. Turkey hosts 70 NATO nuclear weapons at Incirlik Air Force Base, and its leaders believe NATO could deter a nuclear-armed Iran.

 

9. Turkish-Iranian “bling” trade caused an economic scandal in Turkey.

Turkey imports more than it sends abroad, but in the wake of international sanctions against Iran, some Turkish officials lit upon a novel way to boost export figures: trading gold to Iran. Turkey bought Iranian natural gas, and paid the funds into Turkish bank accounts, which Iranian gold traders then used to buy gold in Turkey, which they carried it to Dubai and sold for much-needed foreign currency. The US reacted by sanctioning all gold sales to Iran, while Turkey launched a major investigation in 2013, concluding that Turkey’s Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan had adopted the unsustainable, multi-billion dollar scheme as a solution for Turkey’s trade gap.

 

10. Iran and Turkey backed opposing sides in the Syrian Civil War—but that didn’t upset broader relations.

Following the Arab Spring, the Turkish government assumed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would fall within months, and backed the rebels, even as Iran rushed to prop up the Assad regime. But as the war escalated, both Iran and Turkey sought to compartmentalize the Syrian question so as not to upset broader relations. Turkey favored Hassan Rouhani in the 2013 election in Iran, and has issued statements about working with Iran to limit the regional sectarianism that has been exacerbated by the Syrian war. Neither side can afford to disrupt economic relations, especially as they pertain to the energy trade.

 

This article is an edited version of Siamese Rivals: Iran and Turkey.