Turkey plans to open new border crossing to Baghdad, bypassing KRG

Turkey’s Ambassador to Iraq on Monday said “technical visits” would begin soon between Turkey and Iraq to discuss the opening of a new border crossing which would link the two countries.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Turkey’s Ambassador to Iraq on Monday said “technical visits” would begin soon between Turkey and Iraq to discuss the opening of a new border crossing which would link the two countries.

Fatih Yildiz, the Turkish Ambassador to Iraq, told state-run Anadolu Agency that the new border crossing would improve “cross-border commercial activity.”

The new border crossing will be in Ovakoy, west of the currently-used Ibrahim Khalil, where the country’s border meets with that of Syria and Iraq.

The planned border gate will directly link Turkey to Baghdad via a 570-kilometer highway, according to Yildiz.

A joint Turkish-Iraqi plan to begin trade activity through the tripoint would have to be done with the Kurdistan Region’s consent as the area is under the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) control.

Last year, after Kurdistan’s independence referendum, Turkey was hoping the Iraqi army, and Iranian-backed Shia militias would capture that zone and thus bring an end to the geographic unity of the two Kurdish entities of the Kurdistan Region and Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava).

Ankara would also be able to impose total isolation by shutting its border crossing with the KRG without having to lose its billions dollar-worth commerce with the rest of Iraq.

The entirety of Turkish goods worth tens of billions of dollars shipped to Iraq goes through the Ibrahim Khalil border gate, also known as Khabour, in the Kurdish town of Zakho in Duhok Province.

Despite trade volume between Turkey and Iraq standing at over $10 million, Yildiz said 2017 was a “tough year” for trade relations, citing the war with the Islamic State (IS) as well as Kurdistan’s historic referendum.

“The [IS] presence and [secessionist] efforts in the north both adversely impacted our trade relations,” he told Anadolu Agency.

The Turkish official added that “commercial ties are expected to improve as relations between Erbil and Baghdad pick up again, which will, in turn, lead to new markets for Turkish traders.”

There has been no comment yet from Kurdistan Region officials regarding the proposed border crossing.

(Additional reporting by Ari Khalidi)