Raisi and Erdogan: Competition or Cooperation
Raisi and Erdogan: Competition or Cooperation The Iranian government, grappling with a multitude of economic problems and crises in various sectors, sought a way to alleviate some of its pains by sitting at the table with the Turkish government.
In this meeting, which took place on January 24th, the main issue for the Iranian side, as Ebrahim Raisi had stated before his trip, was the economy. In this regard, and according to Hojatollah Abdolmaleki, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Free Trade Zones, Tehran had prepared a thousand investment packages worth 20 billion euros for Ankara.
However, Turkish media raised another issue. They said Turkey’s priority in the bilateral meeting was the issue of terrorism. Turkey has been dealing with terrorist attacks in recent months, and in the past 40 days, 21 of its soldiers have been killed in attacks conducted from northern Syria and Iraq. The Turkish public expects regional countries, including Iran, to cooperate with them in combating terrorism.
The Iranian side, while acknowledging this concern, sees the existing relationship as broader. Nasser Kanaani, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, explained this past December about Iran and Turkey’s cooperation: ‘The relations between Iran and Turkey are completely clear. One can witness one of the good examples of neighborly relations in the interactions between the two countries in various fields, and God willing, it will continue.’
However, the two countries have many unresolved and accumulated issues between them. Both the statement released after this meeting on the 25th of January and a note by Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s Foreign Minister, published in the Turkish newspaper Milliyet on the eve of the trip, testify to this accumulation of issues.
In this note, he referred to a long list of issues existing between the two countries that require decision-making. These issues spanned almost all levels of cooperation, from cultural, border, and military issues to economic matters. The Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic spoke about the need to increase trade between the two countries and emphasized that the Islamic Republic of Iran is currently one of the most important suppliers of natural gas to Turkey, and the gas pipeline between the two countries has been one of the significant symbols of sustainable economic cooperation since 2001.
However, looking at the statistics of Iran’s gas exports to Turkey shows that what Iran considers important no longer holds the same significance for Turkey, with Iran’s gas sales to Turkey having decreased by 50% last year. This discrepancy in figures and statements highlights some of the problems between these two countries.
Cancelled Trips
Before this trip, over the past year, there were several reports in the media of the two countries about invitations extended to Ebrahim Raisi by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Apart from the previous trip scheduled for January 4th, which was canceled due to a deadly ISIS attack in Kerman, it is not precisely clear why prior trips were canceled.
Amir-Abdollahian explained that the trip planned for November was canceled due to the presence of the foreign ministers of both countries in the United States. However, because at that time, his counterpart was entirely outside Turkey that week, Amir-Abdollahian’s statements did not convince many, as they could have scheduled for a different time. Therefore, various experts proposed different ideas about why the trip did not occur.
The Iranian side believed that the trip was not carried out due to Turkey’s commercial cooperation with Israel, despite the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic’s call for Islamic countries to cut their trade relations with Israel. However, Turkish media had a different perspective, claiming that the trip was canceled due to a lack of agreement on how to combat terrorism in the region. They alleged that the two countries have different approaches to terrorism, and Iran does not accept Turkey’s views on this matter.
A fortune-telling session during part of Ebrahim Raisi’s trip, in which he read a line from an old collection of Hafez’s poems, was seen by some as confirmation of the countries’ differences. In response to the line, which included ‘Be happy, for the oppressor will not find the way home,’ Erdogan pointed to Ebrahim Raisi as the subject of the poem, while Raisi considered Israel to be the subject.
Joint Fight Against Terrorism
The statements of both presidents at a joint press conference held on the afternoon of January 24th indicated that Turkey and Iran view terrorism as a common issue. Ebrahim Raisi reflected his counterpart’s concerns in his speech, stating that Iran considers Turkey’s security as important and inviolable as its own.
However, the reaction of Turkish media after the meeting indicated that they were not convinced by the Iranian side’s statements. They claimed that Iran and the Islamic Republic’s proxy forces contribute to destabilizing the country’s borders. The Turkish government and a portion of its population are concerned about the recent increase in the activities of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. They say that in recent months, the PKK’s influence in Sulaymaniyah, the second-largest city in the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, has increased and that this area is under Iranian influence.
Turkish media report that the city of Sulaymaniyah is under the supervision of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Talabani family, which has very close ties with Iran. They consider the Popular Mobilization Forces as intermediaries in this relationship and claim that these forces provide military assistance to the PKK. Besides these military aids, some Turkish experts allege that PKK members can receive training in the Kurdistan Region and have access to special healthcare facilities.
Now that the influence of the Iranian government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan region of Iraq is significant, Turkey wants Iran to help it in the fight against terrorism. However, some Turkish experts, like Abdullah Agir, believe that Iran might not accept such cooperation due to the corridor project that Iraq has implemented, linking Turkey to the Persian Gulf.
It seems that Turkey is not sure of Iran’s cooperation in this regard because before Raisi’s trip to Ankara, Ibrahim Kalin, the head of Turkey’s intelligence agency, went to Iraq. During this trip, he spoke with Abdul Latif Rashid, the President, and Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, the Prime Minister of Iraq, about the terrorist threats against Turkey.
Many in Turkey believe that Turkey wants to find a new solution to the issue of the PKK’s presence in Iraq. Ankara has conducted numerous attacks in northern Iraq against PKK groups in recent months, a matter that has also led to protests in Iraq. However, now the Turkish government has taken a political approach as well.
Of course, Turkey’s political approach is coupled with threats. Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s Foreign Minister, warned in an extraordinary session of the country’s parliament that despite our sanctions against Sulaymaniyah, if the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan does not change its stance in support of the PKK, we will not hesitate to take further actions.
However, the issue between the two countries is not limited to what is happening in northern Iraq. Turkey says it is also facing terrorist threats in northern Syria. On the other hand, the presence of Iranian forces has limited this country’s maneuverability to return Syrian migrants to their country.
Turkish experts like Mete Sehatoglu say the entire problem is in the cities of Aleppo and Tel Rifaat. He says these two areas are controlled by forces supported by the Islamic Republic, such as Fatemiyoun and Zeinabiyoun, and this has prevented Turkey from starting its project to return migrants. However, he says Turkey will soon carry out new attacks on these areas.
Economy, Maybe Another Time
The main goal of this meeting was economic issues. Before the trip, Ebrahim Raisi had said, ‘Our goal is to raise the level of our country’s trade and economic relations with Turkey to 30 billion dollars, which is achievable with the existing capacities of the two countries.’ In Ankara, at a joint meeting of economic activists from both countries, he also stated, ‘The manifestation of this decision is shown in the documents and agreements signed between the two countries today.’
Raisi even went further and addressed the issue through the political language of the Islamic Republic, saying, ‘The presence of the leaders of the two countries at this meeting conveys the message that the will of Iran and Turkey is to perform a jihadist and leap-forward action to remove obstacles and challenges in the way of comprehensive development of relations, especially in the economic and commercial fields.’ In contrast, Erdogan, in a meeting attended by 400 economic activists from Iran and Turkey, said, ‘We have always emphasized that we oppose unilateral sanctions against Iran. We did not cut our economic and trade relations with our neighbor Iran due to sanctions, and we will not cut them in the future. We are determined to achieve the 30 billion dollar trade target with Iran.’
Of the 10 agreements signed between the two countries during this trip, some were in the economic sectors. Turkey and Iran are striving to exceed the economic volume they reached in 2012. In that year, trade between the two countries amounted to 22 billion dollars, but since then, this figure has mainly been below 15 billion dollars. The main excuse of the two countries is that the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the situation, but it seems that the issue does not end with this two-year period alone.
Turkish newspapers say one of the reasons for the reduction in trade volume is the removal of 68 products from the preferential trade agreement between the two countries by the Iranian side. On the other hand, both parties are dissatisfied with the existing border and customs relations and have repeatedly blamed each other for customs and road processes in recent years. Some economic activists also point to payment issues, saying part of the reason for the lack of growth in trade volume between the two countries is banking and payment relations, a topic that the central bank governors of the two countries sought to resolve within the framework of this meeting.
Another reason for the decline in trade between the two countries is the issue of Iran’s gas sales to Turkey. Statistics from Turkey’s Energy Market Regulatory Authority indicate that in 2023, compared to the previous year, Iran’s gas exports to Turkey decreased by more than 50%, and even in July and September, Iran did not have any gas exports to Turkey. These statistics show that Russia and Azerbaijan have taken over Iran’s gas market in Turkey.
Nevertheless, within the framework of the agreements, the two countries decided to extend the contract for Iran’s gas exports to Turkey for the next 25 years and to increase the volume of gas exports. The ambiguity regarding the trade volume between the two countries and its status is further complicated by the statistics and figures provided by officials on the trade volume between the two countries. Samad Hassanzadeh, the head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, estimates the current economic volume of the two countries at about seven billion dollars.
The statistics provided by Turkey’s Minister of Trade are also close to this figure. He also stated during Ebrahim Raisi’s visit and in a meeting with economic activists that Turkey’s trade volume is 74 billion dollars.
However, concurrently with Raisi’s presence in Ankara, the head of Iran’s Customs Administration announced that Iran and Turkey’s trade in the first 10 months of the current year amounted to 9.5 billion dollars, which represents a 47% decrease compared to the same period last year. This is while he had previously announced a nine-month trade volume of 8.5 billion dollars between the two countries, making it unlikely that the one-month trade volume between the two countries would reach one billion dollars.