In his speech at the ministerial conference of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in the capital of Gambia, the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Fidan, called on the Muslim countries not to subordinate the main issue of the declaration of the Palestinian state to the competition for the leadership of the region. In this regard, we observed that among the Islamic countries of the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia are influential. Who was Fidan referring to, we can assume from the latest information. Iranian President Ebarhim Raisi visited Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and held talks with the head of the regional government, Nechirvan Barzani.
Raisi urged the local and central government not to allow the territory of Iraq to be used against Iran and the “Islamic revolution”. He actually demanded that the Iraqi government “disarm and deport the forces that are working against Iran”. The president of Iran visited Iraqi Kurdistan after the agreement in principle reached between Turkey and Iraq last month. Turkey is preparing for a military operation in northern Iraq, aiming to create a thirty kilometer deep “buffer zone”.
Prior to that, Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan announced that the military action “will also take into account Iran’s interests”. But it seems that Turkish-Iranian contacts have not gone beyond the announcement. The president of Iran went to Erbil, as understood from his statements, to protect the strategic interest of his country. The Turkish “buffer zone” thirty kilometers deep in the north of Iraq will cut off the “Shiadavan arc”. And it is the result of Iran’s decades of hard work, which is due to the regional influence of the Islamic Republic, one can say, its international reputation.
Basically, Iran makes it clear that it does not accept Turkey’s right to carry out a “special military operation” in the north of Iraq and is ready to defend the “Shiadavan arc” it has created until the end. It is noteworthy that Raisi visited Erbil in connection with the “postponing” of the Turkish President’s trip to Washington against the backdrop of Turkish-American diplomatic disagreements. The main goal of Erdoğan’s visit to Washington was to reach an agreement on the “special military operation”. Apparently, the president of Iran is trying to use that “crack” and prevent Turkey from “absorbing Iraq”.
The Turkish-Iranian rivalry in the Middle East seems to be unfolding. Very recently, the advisor of Iran’s spiritual leader, Velayeti, announced in an open text that Iran is the only country that did not allow the “forceful opening of the corridor” in favor of Turkey. The former ambassador of Iran to Azerbaijan, Suleimani, in his turn complained to Russia that “Iran has not left anything in the South Caucasus”. What developments will follow? Will Turkey start the planned “special military operation”? Will the Iraqi central government listen to the Iranian president’s admonitions? It is true that Raisi emphasized the danger of the Mossad agency network in Iraq, but this is perhaps a diplomatic understatement.
