Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's first official visit to Turkey started at the beginning of this week. The visit is crucial on many counts, mainly its political and symbolic significance.
This is the first time an Iranian president is visiting Turkey in 18 years, but Rouhani's visit differs from the visit of Rafsanjani, who was the president back then, in 1996. In 1996, Turkey was governed by Necmettin Erbakan's coalition government, and Erbakan, just like now, believed Turkey should be building strong relations with the East, especially Iran, collaborating in the field of energy. Therefore, Erbakan attempted to sign a 25-year natural gas deal and paid his first official visit to Iran after he was elected as prime minister. The same year, Rafsanjani returned the favor by paying Turkey a visit. Unfortunately, all positive attempts and steps taken were interrupted by the Feb. 28 coup in 1997.
Iran and Turkey coming this close to signing a deal that would change the energy map of the region and a military coup d'état taking place nearly a year after such a deal was signed, setting back the improvements achieved in Turkish-Iranian relations, are all very significant and should be noted in history.
According to the deal in 1996, natural gas would be delivered from the northwestern region of Iran via pipelines. Gas from Turkmenistan would then also be added to these pipelines and distributed. According to the 23-year deal, Turkey would purchase gas valued at $20 billion from Iran, starting from 1999; 275 kilometers of this pipeline would be constructed between Tebriz and the Turkish border, and 1,160 kilometers would pass through the provinces of Erzurum, Erzincan and Kayseri and then split into two branches, one ending in Adana, the other in Turkey's capital, Ankara. Today, Turkey imports 10 billion cubic meters of gas from Iran, including natural gas that Iran imports from Turkmenistan. Unfortunately though, Turkey purchases the most expensive natural gas from Iran, causing a huge commercial conflict between the two countries.
However, Rouhani and the Iranian government these days want to resolve such issues and improve relations. Moreover, Iran noted earlier this year that they would like to be involved in the Southern Gas Corridor project, in which Turkey and Azerbaijan are the two major players in the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP). Turkey is also considering and working on the project, which will deliver natural gas coming from Iran according to the terms of the deal signed, to Europe right beside the TANAP project's pipelines. Besides, both countries aim to raise the trading volume to $30 billion by 2015.
Turkey always stood against Iran being a closed dictatorship and has supported Iran in opening its doors to the world and taking steps towards democratization. The agreement signed between Iran-Turkey and Brazil to introduce restrictions and inspections of uranium enrichment was disregarded by the Western world. However, as soon as Rouhani came into power, Iran signed a similar deal with the West in 2010 in Geneva. This deal, signed in Geneva, undoubtedly carried greater importance and depth than just its terms.
Conventionally, the state of Iran can take rapid steps and change direction during historic transitional periods. After the deal was signed, news from Iran also proved that the government is shifting toward a new direction. For example, Rafsanjani interpreted the deal as an important step in overcoming the diplomatic estrangement of Iran from the West since the 1979 Revolution and stated that he believed the final result would be achieved within a year. Similarly, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also said that he believed the deal was just the first step, with many positive improvements to follow.
Even though many didn't state it out loud, this historical step by Iran was not welcomed by certain "circles." There is a large circle in Turkey that benefits from Iran remaining a closed, anti-democratic state. But now it is too late. Iran is set on a new course; just like China, it has determined a suitable track according to its internal conditions and power balances. In fact, this track is not so very far from the path Turkey has been following the last decade.
The Iranian oligarchy has repeated the same mistakes as the former-Soviet Republics. It spent its limited resources on armament - both conventional and nuclear - and closed its doors to the rest of the world. "Bonyads," which are foundations that are owned and managed by Iran's elites and which have now turned into monopolies, were the main reason behind such choices. The regime that owned these bonyads was also in charge of most of the Iranian economy. Moreover, if you include the economic network managed by the "Basij" militia, which is under the control of the Revolutionary Guards, it becomes apparent that Iran's economy was completely closed to the world and could not compete with the rest of the world, even if all embargos were lifted.
What is the situation now? What has changed? Iran's economy till today was ruled by the two major forces discussed above: the bonyads and the economic network under the control of the Revolutionary Guards, which was more radical. Now the power and control of the Revolutionary Guards is diminishing and a more "moderate" wing, which is in favor of destroying the walls surrounding the Iranian economy, has won the power struggle. In fact, the equivalent of this radical wing, which is retreating in Iran, in Israel can be described as the Netanyahu government. Dissolution of the radicals within the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping, who is undertaking all "liberal" reforms lately in China, is also similar to what Iran is going through.
While major countries in Asia and the Middle East, which have different social structures and histories undergoing important transformations and taking leading positions that may have a defining effect on the world's economy and politics one after the other, close the gap in terms of levels of development between the East and the West, it also causes regional integration and alliances to be formed, resulting in new economic politics to emerge. Such steps shortly will result in major regional unions and common markets of such unions through free trade agreements to emerge. We can no longer argue that a Turkey-Iran-Iraq free trade zone is out of the question. For the first time in history, the vast region that we call Eurasia is extremely close to economic and political integration, and Turkey, Iran and Russia appear as the major, determining players in the region. In this respect, Rouhani's visit to Turkey after 18 years marks a very important step in history both for the East and the West.
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