Strategic Assessment

The growing cooperation in recent years between the Turkish government and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has been one of the notable transformations in Middle Eastern politics. This article attempts to sketch the motives behind this growing cooperation, outline its limits, and assess the regional implications of this relationship. It will address four main areas driving Turkish policies toward northern Iraq: domestic politics, economic rationales, the regional security impetus, and global considerations. While the article traces some of the longer term processes behind the transformation in Turkish-KRG relations, it highlights the period following the 2011 US withdrawal from Iraq, a period that has yet to be thoroughly examined by scholars.