Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds: From Red Lines to Red Carpets

Next month's expected visit of Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, to Turkey was a first step ending hostility between Ankara and the Kurdish leadership and ending Turkey's long-time Kurdish problem.

One of the biggest propellers of change had been flourishing trade ties. Iraq was Turkey's fourth largest trading partner. Most of this trade was conducted with the Iraqi Kurds. The other major change in Turkey's relations with the Iraqi Kurds was that they were no longer viewed through the PKK lens, but from an Iraq-wide perspective. Friendship with the Iraqi Kurds allowed Ankara to have a greater say in Baghdad. The Iraqi Kurdish and Turkish economies were already tightly intertwined. Once the Iraqi Kurds stroke an agreement with Baghdad over the sharing of oil revenues, they could start selling their own oil and natural gas resources through Turkey. This virtuous cycle caould help alleviate poverty among Turkish Kurds. Yet, Ankara must never cede to the age-old temptation of playing one set of Kurds against the other.