Traveling with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu allows for a good opportunity for a tour d’horizon
of foreign policy, but sometimes you miss out on what is happening on
the ground, as was the case yesterday. After landing in Brussels, he
headed to the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting and we heard the news that the plane of our Energy Minister Taner Yilmaz was not allowed to land in Iraq. 

Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (L) and his 
Turkish
counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu (R) meet in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
Nov. 20, 2012. 

The tension with Baghdad cannot be dismissed. Remember how Baghdad was furious
when Davutoglu visited Kirkuk. Was this payback? They cannot physically
prevent the energy minister from going to Erbil by road. What was
disturbing was yet another manifestation of the troubles in
Ankara-Baghdad relations and shows that our tense relations are not
confined only to the issue of Syria.

When you look at the map, it is obvious that Turkey doesn’t have any
problems with its ‘’real’’ neighbor, Iraqi Kurdistan and the Kurdistan
Regional Government under Massoud Barzani. To the contrary, these relations are improving by the day.

But tension between Erbil and Baghdad has the potential of developing
into tension between Ankara and Baghdad. Of course we should not ignore
Tehran’s shadow, which is behind every move Baghdad makes against Erbil
and Ankara. You have to watch the latest Middle East developments on a
wide screen.

While chatting with Davutoglu on the plane — before learning about the
problem with the energy minister — we asked him about his views on
Erbil-Baghdad tensions. 
Davutoglu did not hide the fact that he is more
worried about that issue than he is about the developments in Syria.  
 When explaining why his concern for Iraq was greater than that for
Syria, he said that the events in Iraq have the potential of turning
into an Arab-Kurd war and the situation was truly serious. 

He added both
sides — the Tigris Operations Command forces set up by Maliki and Kurdish peshmergas [fighters] — were potent and well-organized forces.

Davutoglu said the developments in Syria were relatively easy to
predict, as the regime’s capabilities are known. However, how the
situation will develop in Iraq was not that easy to foresee. 
His views
on the short life expectancy of the Syrian regime have not changed. 
He
even perceives the resignation of the Syrian Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Jihad Makdissi as an indicator of the crumbling of the regime.

In that case, why is Turkey pursuing Patriot missiles?

Ahmet Davutoglu said that Syria has far more than 500 missiles. 
“We
know where they are, how many there are and how they move. We watch them
constantly,” Davutoglu said. 
The minister and his team do not expect
Syria to use these missiles against Turkey, but with the disintegration
of the regime these missiles could be taken over by “uncontrolled
forces” and Turkey could not neglect the possibility of these forces
firing the missiles.

One of Davutoglu’s closest aides said: “Even if there is 1% or 3% probability of this happening, we cannot take the risk.”
Patriots alone cannot handle all of Syria’s missiles.  Patriots are
considered in concert with THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Air Defense]
anti-missile systems and Aegis systems against missiles fired at very
high altitudes.

The real purpose of the patriot missiles is to provide a deterrent
against Syria and, more importantly, to show  that Turkey is a part of a
collective security system and that NATO will carry out its part in
defending Turkey.

We learned that Patriot missiles were not mentioned in the meetings with Putin and Lavrov. 

But Davutoglu wanted to tell us that although the Istanbul Summit did
not fully eliminate the differences between Ankara and Moscow over
Syria, positions were becoming closer.

I understood that Turkey will continue with initiatives to shorten the
life of the Syrian regime after the deployment of Patriot missiles, and
will be in close contact with Egypt regarding the transition in Syria.

No doubt, developments in Iraq will be watched closely. Prevailing
opinion is that Maliki believes that a civil war is inevitable in Iraq
following the collapse of the Syrian regime and is positioning himself
accordingly.

As you can see we are continuing to debate the Middle East in the air, on the ground and in the center of Europe.