Page 18 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

P.M.Ignatiev, P.V.Bovsunivskyi: Turkey and Iran: political rivalry and economic cooperation
through the ages

consideration [23]. On the other hand, during the last several years Turkey was

forced to cut the daily consumption of Iranian oil from 200 thousand barrels to 100

thousand barrels under the external pressure [24].

Both countries also publicly supported the activists of Arab Spring for the

different reasons. Iranian leadership claimed that those developments were modelled

after Islamic revolution of 1979 and that Islamic values will dominate in the Middle

East. On the contrary, Turkey considered the mass uprising in the region as a chance

to impose its own political system with transparent elections and showed the stong

preference to Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. On the other hand, the tragic events after

uprisings in Syria and Yemen pitted both states against each other. Different foreign

policy interests became evident after the beginning of Syrian Civil war in the spring of

2011 and afterwards in Iraq. Turkish government unconditionally supported Sunni

tribes in Syria and Iran in turn encouraged Alawi regime of Bashar al-Assad to wage a

war against the rebels. But the Prime Minister Erdoğan, who ironically never tolerated

opposition to his own rule, grew increasingly disappointed with cruel response of

Bashar al-Assad to protests of ordinary Syrians. The later chose military solution

instead of set of political concessions under the auspices of official Ankara. As result

the war became one of the most devastating in the Middle East with 200 thousand

people died and 3,8 million Syrians left the motherland. Today Turkey hosts 1,6

million refugees and already allocated 4,5 billion dollars to help them to adjust to the

new life. The rise of ISIS in Syria presents official Ankara with a new dilemma, since

18