Border Security between Türkiye and Iraq: A Permanent Challenge for Ankara

The relations between Türkiye and Iraq have gone through different stages during the last hundred years as they went from being one nation under the Ottoman Empire to splitting into two independent neighboring countries bordering each other. Among the issues that have characterized their relations for the past four decades was the security risk resulting from the PKK’s threat. Türkiye has a long history of cross-border operations in Northern Iraq that goes back to the 1980s, aiming to neutralize the Kurd’s threat. However, recently, it launched offensive operations in the mountainous areas that were considered historically a haven for PKK, in line with promoting economic cooperation with Iraq. Under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the vision and strategy in Iraq have known different periods but with a permanent paradigm: to establish partnerships in Iraq to reduce the PKK threat. This paper investigates the border security cooperation approach adopted by Erdogan’s Türkiye by analyzing the border management context from a Turkish perspective using qualitative analytical methodology. Therefore, it will shed light on the economic and national security challenges at the heart of the Turkish strategy.