Hydro-Political Relations Between Turkey and Iraq Over the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers: Dyadic Relationships and Structure Matter

This article addresses the hydro-political relationship between Iraq and Turkey by applying the framework of hydro-hegemony. During the Cold War, the Turkish-Iraqi hydro-relationship was influenced by both contextual and structural factors. Before the rise to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, Turkish foreign policy toward Iraq mainly consisted of hard power decisions. Subsequently, Turkey has relied on both soft and hard strategies, enabling it to respond appropriately to the Iraqi fluid situation. Overall, the article traces these changes and argues that their hydro-political relationship was characterised by partial cooperation.