Page 20 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

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

The country provides Iraqi Kurdistan with electricity, spare workforce, consumer

goods and building materials and takes instead «black gold». Turkish construction

companies participate in many projects in this region, because they gained the relavent

experience in this field after Iran-Iraqi war. The suppliers from Turkey satisfy 33 per

cent of Iraqi import needs and Turkish investments in Iraq constitute more than 15

billion dollars. At the same time Iranian investments in that country do not exceed 10

billion dollars [28]. On the other hand, Iranian companies enjoy strong presence in

Shia-dominated South and holy cities of Iraq (pipelines, roads, hotels and facilities for

piligrims) and develop transportation links between the area of Basra and Southern

Iran. Official Ankara believes that political leader Nuri al Maliki and his successor

Haider Al-Abadi are too dependent on Iran. The Shahs from dynasty Pehlevi

traditionaly supported Kurdish movement in Iraq as a mechanism to undermine Iraqi

power in general and regime of Saddam Husain in particular, but recent Turkish

economic domination here makes Iran apprehensive, since official Tehran intends to

control all parts of nearby Shia country.

The latest takeover of the state power in Yemen by the Shia Houthi rebels

complicates relations between both countries even more and Turkish mass-media

openly characterized those events as outright Iranian coup. In some respects

relations between Turkey and Iran mirror those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, since

regional competition for the power and influence among them remains strong [29].

Conclusion. Turkey and Iran experienced the long and complex relations since

the Middle Ages and later in ХХ century both of them lived through the drastic

20