Iran is fueling the Iraqi dispute with Turkey

On the 20th of last July, a bloody bombing of a tourist resort in the Iraqi province of Dohuk killed 8 Iraqi civilians in an attack that Baghdad accused the Turkish army of being responsible for, but Ankara quickly denied its responsibility and accused the PKK of being involved in it with the aim of creating a crisis between Ankara and Baghdad .

Turkey has been waging regular military operations against the PKK in northern Iraq for nearly two and a half decades, and Baghdad has been constantly protesting and considering it a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, but the recent Iraqi escalation against Ankara has taken a more severe turn than the previous one. Baghdad last week asked the UN Security Council to issue a resolution obligating Turkey withdrew its forces from Iraq, and the Turkish consulate in Mosul was subjected to missile attacks. It is likely that the pro-Iranian Popular Mobilization factions were behind it, and a militia close to the factions adopted another attack on the Turkish Zlikan camp in the north of Nineveh Governorate.

This is not the first time that Turkish headquarters and bases have been attacked, but the current political tensions give the factions affiliated with Tehran greater ability to move against Turkish interests.

Although the tensions between Ankara and Baghdad have their own chronic causes related to Turkish military activity, the pressure exerted by Tehran on Baghdad through its allies to adopt a hard-line rhetoric regarding Turkish military operations has given these tensions a regional dimension related to the Iranian-Turkish competition, which has weakened Baghdad’s ability to continue its policy Managing the conflict with Ankara, which is a necessary need for the two countries in light of their overlapping interests in many areas;

From security, to economy and trade, to water resources.

In security in particular, Ankara and Baghdad have a common interest in weakening the ability of the PKK to threaten Turkey from Iraqi territory.

However, the escalation of Turkish operations against the party since the collapse of the peace process in 2015 and the spillover of the conflict into areas outside the borders of the Kurdistan region of Iraq and in Syria also gave it greater impetus and attracted to it a complex network of other actors.

The PKK was able to expand its influence towards Sinjar Governorate, after it was confined before that to the Qandil Mountains and Makhmour region, and it also increased its influence over the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units.

In light of these transformations, the dynamics of the conflict between Turkey and the PKK has become linked to its other conflict with the Syrian Kurdish units, as it fears that Sinjar will turn into a land bridge linking the ISIS-controlled areas in northern Iraq with the Kurdish factions’ areas in northeastern Syria.

Given the extensive influence that Iran enjoys in both countries, it views the increasing Turkish role as constraining its geopolitical ambitions in the two countries.

Ankara and Tehran have a common interest in weakening Kurdish separatist activity in both countries, and fear that it will fuel separatism between the Kurds of Iran and Turkey.

In Syria, Iran opposes the project of autonomy for the Kurdish units, but it rejects the Turkish military presence and currently opposes Ankara's plans to launch a new military operation in the Tal Rifaat and Manbij regions.

In Iraq, Tehran and Ankara together rallied against the Kurdistan Region's independence referendum in 2017, but both sought to attract an Iraqi Kurdish faction to their side.

Ankara built a strong relationship with the Erbil government and the KDP to help it in its struggle with the PKK, while Tehran strengthened its ties with the PUK.

This Turkish-Iranian geopolitical rivalry not only prevented strategic cooperation between the two countries in combating Kurdish separatist activity in their neighborhood, but also became another sign of regional competition between them.

Tehran has always expressed strong opposition to the Turkish military presence in Syria and Iraq and pushed the Popular Mobilization factions to partner with the PKK in Sinjar to restrict Turkish military activity in the region.

In 2020, Erbil and Baghdad concluded an agreement to remove PKK fighters from Sinjar, but the PMF factions have resisted implementing the agreement and are still preventing Iraqi forces from entering the province.

In some ways, the conflict over Sinjar reflects a rivalry between Ankara and Tehran for influence in the province of Mosul.

Over the past years, Turkey has been able, through the strong relations it established with the Erbil government and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and through its large investments in the region and the oil trade;

It has been able to create a flexible space to move against PKK activities in northern Iraq, but its efforts to expand the geographic scope of the conflict make it more vulnerable to pressure from Baghdad and Tehran.

In addition, the Iraqi reaction to the Dohuk attack goes beyond the issue of the Turkish military presence in the country, and reflects Baghdad and Tehran's resentment over the close relations that Ankara maintains with Erbil, especially in the oil trade.

Last February, Iraq's Federal Supreme Court dealt a blow to the oil partnership between Turkey and Erbil when it ruled that the 2007 oil and gas law was unconstitutional, and Ankara is also facing an arbitration case brought by Iraq to an international court over Ankara's role in helping the Kurdistan Regional Government to export its oil. Independently from Baghdad via a purpose-built pipeline, the court is due to issue its verdict within two months.

This issue constitutes an additional Iraqi pressure card on Ankara to push it to take the interests of Baghdad and Tehran into consideration in its struggle with the PKK and its relations with the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Regardless of the party involved in the attack on civilians in Dohuk governorate, Baghdad's haste to accuse Ankara of being responsible for it, and the Popular Mobilization factions' exploitation of the incident in order to stoke internal anger against Turkey, point to several motives that fuel the existing crisis between the two countries.

It is unlikely that Turkey's strategy will be affected by the pressure exerted on it by Baghdad and Tehran, but its military presence in Iraq will become more subject to scrutiny in the next stage.

Iran and its allies in Iraq are seeking to restrict Turkish military activity and pressure Ankara to withdraw its forces stationed in the Bashiqa camp east of Mosul, which is the only Turkish base in Iraq outside the Kurdistan region.

Tehran has not hidden its objection repeatedly to the Turkish military bases deployed in northern Iraq, and has previously exposed the "Bashiqa" camp.