Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Feb 21 2008
Mistrust Problem in Turkey – Iran Relations
Sedat Laciner
Thursday , 21 February 2008
Iran, with its 70 million-population, with its huge surface area
(almost two times bigger than Turkey), and with its abundant energy
resources, is one of the most crucial states of the Middle East
region. At the same time, Iran has the second largest economy of
Middle East and Muslim geography after Turkish economy. Besides, Iran
is one of the neighbors of Turkey. When all these data are
considered, it is natural to expect a serious economic co-operation
or even economic integration between these two neighbors, Turkey and
Iran. However, a thorny picture is confronted when the relations are
considered:
Iran, together with China and Russia, is one of the countries that
Turkey has given great external trade deficit. The annual deficit in
Turkey – Iran external trade is over $ 5 billion. While gas import
constitutes almost 75 % of Turkish – Iranian external trade,
non-natural gas trade capacity between Turkey and Iran is just around
$ 2 billion although Turkey with its industry and
agriculture-stockbreeding sectors can sustain most of the Iranian
needs. It is strange that there is a significant resistance against
Turkish companies in Iranian bureaucracy.
The situation is even worse in direct investments than bilateral
trade. Turkish investors have faced unbelievable drawbacks. Turkish
investors cannot utilize from advantages of being a neighbor country
and having common cultural-religious similarities, they even have
faced drawbacks because of being Turk. When all the drawbacks were
overcome and came to the last phase of adjudication, the process can
suddenly be canceled. The TAV and the Turkcell are the clearest
examples to understand the Iranian resistance against Turkish
investors in Iran. A group of Turkish businessmen, who had visited
USAK three weeks ago, complained about another aspect of doing
business with Iran. They stated that Iranian businessmen recently
seem very excited for co-operation with Turkish companies but almost
all of the co-operation attempts ended with disappointments for
Turkish side. After find out profession secrets of Turkish
businessmen (know-how) and learned how production is made, Iranians
force their Turkish partners go away from Iran and keep on business.
The businessmen appraise this approach of Iranians as an `eastern
opportunism’ and explain how difficult to make sustainable
co-operation with Iranians for a long period. It is obvious that
closed-economy and economic sanctions, occurred after the revolution,
alienate Iranians from competition and it seems it will take so long
for them to learn new universal business rules. In other words, the
only bar before external economic co-operation in Iran is not the
political resistance to international co-operation but also cultural
resistance.
***
Whoever says, it is obvious that there are some forces inside the
Iranian state who don’t want more Turkish companies in Iran. These
invisible men see Turkey as `spy of the USA and Israel’. They
consider Turkey as possible trigger of a possible `counter
revolution’ in Iran. Although the newly emerging active Turkish
Middle East policies in post-1 March Memorandum (Tezkere) Period and
the Iraq War, have soften these thoughts, for the radical Iranian
revolutionists Turkey should still be perceived as a suspicious
country.
Second reason is Turkey’s stand points are being completely opposite
to revolutionary Iran in almost all fields. Turkey is the champion of
different religious interpretations and way of lives in the Muslim
world and with its open market and relatively liberal and pluralistic
political structure Turkey has the power to influence Iranian masses.
The Iranian people watch Turkish TV channelles everyday and about
half a million Iranians visit Turkey every year. Ordinary Iranians
are not happy with their life in Iran and wish to reach the Turkish
way of life. Turkey has been emerging as a new role model for many
Iranians. This is Turkey’s soft power on Iran. In other words,
Turkish understanding is perceived as `antidote of Iranian
understanding’ for some Iranians. Due to this, within the Iranian
state, a resistance is occurred towards the relations with Turkey.
Another problem that hinders the improvement of the relations is the
traditional – historical Iranian politics. This could be a serious
problem even if Iran was a secular country. It is a historical fact
that almost all Middle Eastern countries have been skeptical about
Iran under any regime or leader. The mistrust towards Iran among
Arabs, Turks and other Muslim nations of the greater Middle East has
always been there. So as to remind, during the Ottoman era, Iran and
Ottoman Empire couldn’t be allies, and couldn’t ensure any serious
economic or political co-operation. At that time, Iranian – Vatican
relations were much better than the Ottoman – Iranian relations.
Although many Turkish researchers consider stable Iranian – Ottoman
border as proof for Ottoman – Iranian friendship, the reason of
nearly unchanged borders should be searched in balance of power
instead of confidence between two nations. If the Ottoman Empire was
so powerful, Iran would have extended inside the Anatolian
territories. As a matter of fact that the Iranian forces time to time
attempted to invade the Ottoman territories yet they could not
advance more. The Ottomans on the other hand did not spread its
territories inside Iran so much because its expansion field was
Europe and the Mediterranean region. In brief, stability in the
borders was not a natural result of strong relations but balance of
power. The Ottomans had got various measures in Iraq and Anatolia
against Iranian threat. For instance, the real reason why Iraqi
Turkmens were settled like a sword from north to south of Iraq was
the `Iranian danger’.
Actually, Iranian relations have not only been problematic with the
Anatolian Turks but also with almost whole Muslim world. The
relations were problematic before the 1979 Revolution and remained
problematic after the so-called Islamic Revolution. In another word
the change in Iranian foreign policy towards the Muslim countries
remained similar to Shah’s `imperial policies’. For many Arab
countries the first threat to Arab world is Iran. During the Cold
War, the U.S. tried to unite the Arab world against the communist
threat under her leadership and now she has utilized Iran threat as a
mean. It means that Iran legitimize the US existence in the region,
especially in the Gulf countries. When you spoke with Arab diplomats
and other authorities, except those of Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah,
you realize that none of the regional countries truly rely on Iran.
The Gulf Arabs for example define Iran as one of the major threats
because they think that Iran may attack to them and may intervene
their domestic affairs. It is well known fact that Iranian State has
been very keen on intervening the domestic issues of the other Muslim
countries since 1979. That’s why the Arab countries of the Gulf
called the Americans, British and even the French to balance the
Iranian power in the region. Not only the Gulf Arabs but also Jordan
and Egypt Arabs are also skeptical about Iran. One of the Arab
diplomat told me that they receive very mixed signals from Tehran.
`There is at least couple of states in Teheran’ he added.
Iran not only `frightens’ the Arabs but also other Muslim countries
like Pakistan. There are a lot of examples, but the most dramatic
one experienced when the Pakistan earthquake happened. Iran made all
possible efforts to stop Turkish charities and other aid convoys to
Pakistan. This bitter memory has never been forgotten by both Turkey
and Pakistan. Iran sees Pakistan as rival country and strangely
prevent an economic integration between Turkey, Pakistan and Iran
although all these three countries need more co-operation to overcome
their economic and social problems.
Iran-Turkey relations are not an exception, Iranian mistrust problem
exist with almost all Turkish states. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and other Turk republics are skeptical about Iranian
policies in the Central Asia and Caucasus. Azerbaijan in particular
is certainly aware of Iranian support for Armenia. It is not secret
that during the Armenian occupation on Azerbaijan lands, Russia and
Iran was the first two countries that gave economic support to
Armenia. Armenia has gained strength against Azerbaijan thanks to the
Iranian aid in every field especially in energy. Tehran, time to
time, tries to act as a mediator between Baku and Yerevan. This is
strange because Iran defines itself as an Islamic state and
Azerbaijani people are Muslim. Iran and Azerbaijan not only share the
same religion but also the same sect, Shia. In addition more than 35
percent of Iranian population is Azerbaijani. However Iran prefers
Christian Armenia instead of Muslim and Shia Azerbaijan. It is clear
that Iranian foreign policy in the region is not religious.
Another thorny issue between Iran and Azerbaijan is the Caspian Sea.
If Turkey and the U.S. did not give political and military support to
Baku, it was obvious how difficult situation Azerbaijan might face
the Caspian Sea.
Similarly the other Turkish Republics of the Central Asia were
disturbed by the Iranian `regime exporters’ and missionaries during
the 1990s and 2000s. Iranian regime has always been perceived as
source of threat by the Turkic societies. Turkish Islam and Iranian
Islam have never been the same interpretation of the religion and the
gap in religious life reflected on political issues.
Another problem is the PKK terrorism. From Turkish point of view,
Iran’s support to PKK terrorist organization is still in the
memories. The intelligence reports clearly show that Teheran helped
or ignored the PKK in the 1980s and 1990s. It is claimed that the PKK
bases and other infrastructure around the Kandil Mountain was
constructed by the Iranians. Iran generally turned a blind eye on
terror and the PKK terrorists freely used Turkey-Iran borders to
attack Turkish forces during the 1990s. Today Iran has the same
trouble and has had to co-operate with Turkey. The Iraq War shifted
the balance of power in the region, and the PKK terrorists now target
Iran too. The PKK has recently killed more than 100 Iranian soldiers
and police. The Kurdish problem in Iraq and other Iraqi problems also
threaten Iran too and Iran searches Turkey’s friendship in Iraq and
the PKK problem. However, it is really difficult for the Turks to
fully trust Iran in strategic issues. The past experiences and the
mixed signals from Teheran also do not help the Turks to rely on
Iran.
***
As discussed above, Iran has awkward relations with most of the
Muslim countries. However Iran has quite good relations with Russia
and Armenia, the two Christian countries in the region. Besides,
these two countries have serious problems with the Muslim countries.
Armenia has occupied almost one over five of its neighbor
Azerbaijan’s land; Russia caused serious humanity tragedy in
Chechnya. In other words, it is really difficult not to remember Iran
who had co-operated with Vatican against Ottoman.
With these data, it can be said that Iran is one of the significant
obstacle for Turkey who wants to sustain economic integration, trade
and political co-operation in the Middle East. Some Iranians think
that Turkey has a secret (filthy) agenda. These Iranian people deep
inside Iranian State are anxious about Turkey’s digging up the
country with trade. This point of view exists in Iran towards not
only Turkey but also other regional countries. The skepticism inside
Iran however may create skepticism in Turkey and other regional
countries. Thus the imagined threats may become real threats. That’s
why Iranian skepticism and mistrust about the region is not only
wrong but also dangerous.
THE GAS DISPUTE
The natural gas cuts are another example of Iran’s wrong point of
view regarding Turkey and regional trade. As it is known, in order to
decrease its dependency on Russia and to increase its trade with its
neighbor Iran, Turkey decided to get Iranian natural gas. In this
purpose, huge investments were made to build hundreds of kilometers
pipelines between these two countries. When Turkey first brought this
pipeline project into the agenda, it had encountered serious
political costs both inside and outside. While, from inside it is
said that to co-operate with an Islamist country like Iran is against
the main elements of Turkish Republic’s founding principle
secularism; from outside, the U.S. clarified that she is against all
kind of co-operations with Iran. However, Ankara accomplished all
these difficulties and built the Iranian gas pipeline. Even, in the
following years, it sought for other co-operations in natural gas
fields with Tehran. While in a period the world run away from Iran
and treat it as an `unwanted country’, Iran arbitrarily began to cut
gas to Turkey, even in the middle of a cold winter. Apart from the
cuts, the quality of Iranian gas has been another problem. Iran could
not serve as it promised till now. All these technical problems and
immediate cuts caused great cost in Turkish economy. Two winters ago
for instance, the industrial areas thanks to Iranian gas cut shut
down their productions because of gas shortage. This year serious
problems have occurred in electricity production again due to Iranian
gas cuts.
When it cuts gas, Iran sees no need to make a detailed explanation at
the right time. No explanation, no apology. Iranian engineers close
the valve of gas if Iran wishes or opens it if it does not wish so.
When reactions toughen from Turkey, Iran finds some unacceptable
excuses. This year, Iranian justifications are the same again:
`Winter is so cold this year. It doesn’t enough for us, how we will
give you?’
In fact, in Turkey some people go forward by acknowledging Iran is
right. They said: `How can a country sell its gas to outside while it
doesn’t enough for its citizens?’
Certainly a country must sell its gas to other countries under any
circumstances if it signed written gas export agreements. If a
country signed an agreement, undertake an international obligation,
the priority is its external obligations. It has to keep its words
what ever will happen. Otherwise, no one can make trade and political
co-operation with it. It was not the first time that Iran had cold
winter. It is also not a secret how much its gas production would be.
At that point, Iran that signed an agreement with another country,
should obey these obligations. At least it should share its
difficulty with Turkey and ask Turkey’s help to increase production
and solve the technical problems in gas production. At least Iran
owns an apology to Turkish people.
Another justification of Iran is the sudden cut in Turkmen gas that
Iran imports. Turkmenistan has made efforts to persuade Iran for
higer gas prices, and Tehran has resisted the demand. Turkmens saw
the cold weather as opportunity to `persuade’ Iranians by cutting
gas. At this point we should also note that Iran has not been
constructive in direct import of Turkmen gas from Turkmenistan
through Iranian territories. Iranians as a matter of fact that buys
Turkmen gas and sells it to Turkey at higher prices. And when the
Turkmens cut the gas, they cannot sell Turkmen gas to Turkey and
their gas production is not enough for a big export to Turkey.
However it should be noted that Turkmen gas is not Turkey’s business.
Turkey has no agreement with Turkmenistan but Iran.
***
In brief, although Iran is surrounded by the U.S. forces and
threatened almost every day by the Washington, it fails to gain the
hearts and minds of the Middle East peoples as well. Even, Iran
doesn’t carry out its obligations towards Turkish market where it
earned billion dollars. It is unfortunate that Iran doesn’t act as a
consistent partner.
If Turkey and Iran can overcome the barriers before economic
co-operation a deeper economic integration in Turkey-Iran-Central
Asia corridor and Turkey-Iran-Pakistan line would be inevitable.
Lastly, it can be said that the most crucial obstacle for Iran is
Iran itself. Meaningless and contradictory messages are coming from
Iran. At this moment there is at least more than one Iran, and this
kind of Iran frightens regional countries as much as the U.S. does.
Translated by Beliz EROL and Gulcin SUZME
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress