By Reuters
Baghdad
Ties between Turkey and Iraq have been strained as Ankara refused to extradite Iraq’s vice president, who was sentenced by default to death by an Iraqi court on terror charges.
Iraq’s Ministry of Trade declared on Wednesday that it had revoked operating licenses for Turkish companies in Iraq.
The licenses have been put aside until further notice while inspections are conducted and arrangements made, the ministry said in a written statement.
The move came after Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan again on Tuesday rejected Iraq’s demand for the extradition of Iraq’s Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who has been in Turkey since April 9.
Many Iraqi senators have accused Turkey of meddling in its internal affairs on the issue of Hashemi. It has led to the deterioration of relations between the two countries.
“This is an act of repeated interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq and an infringement upon Iraq’s sovereignty. It is absolutely unacceptable. Turkey’s recent position has made the bilateral ties worsened. It means to bet on the bilateral relations and Turkey is bound to suffer from the consequences,” said Khalid al-Asadi, an Iraqi senator.
Currently, 366 Turkish firms are registered with Iraq’s Trade Ministry and are not affected, Caglayan said in a written statement.
Analysts argue that Turkey should be cautious on how to act with regard to Iraq in order to not have a negative impact on their economic ties.
Many analysts believe that the issue of Hashemi is but superficial and there might be more underlying factors that contributed to the deterioration of the bilateral ties. Iraq has long been locked in disputes with Turkey and other neighboring countries over water resources.
There are two rivers in Iraq, the Tigris and the Euphrates, but both are sourced in Turkey.
Turkey has since 1980s been building hydro-power stations on the upper reaches of the Tigris, reducing the water flows downstream, causing water shortages in both drinking and irrigation in Iraq.
“Water shortages and the drought in the southern regions have greatly affected the agricultural production of Iraq and caused more and more crop fields to be decertified about 2.5 million square meters of cultivated land are reduced to deserts every year,” said Ghazi al-Abudi, Iraq’s vice minister of agriculture.
In addition, Turkey has time again put the oar in the petroleum odds between Iraq’s central government and the Kurd region, currying favor with the Kurd region. This has courts repeated protests from the Iraqi’s government.
Ankara accuses Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of playing sectarian cards and marginalizing Sunni Arabs and Kurds, while Baghdad blames Turkey for meddling in its internal affairs