European Student Think Tank

Myth III: Tur­key is Iran’s ally and/or Turkey’s rela­tion­ship with Iran is a proof that they are the same!

I have heard and read state­ments like; “Tur­key is in love with Iran” and the most voiced evid­ence for such claims is the increas­ing trade and energy rela­tions between the two. It is true that Tur­key is among the top 5 trade part­ners of Iran (5.6% of total imports and exports) but let’s take a look at the Ira­nian trade list to see where most of its trad­ing cara­vans go to or come from. The num­ber one in the list is the EU, account­ing for almost a third of Iran’s exports.[1] Iran ranks as 6th sup­plier of energy products for the EU as 90 % of the EU import from Iran is energy related. In return the EU coun­tries export machinery and trans­port equip­ment, man­u­fac­tured goods and chem­ic­als. When you look at the 2009 trade stat­ist­ics you will see that the total trade volume between the EU and Iran was 28.7 bil­lion Euros[2] while trade between Tur­key and Iran was about 7-8 bil­lion Euros the same year.[3] If one needs more inform­a­tion about this I would sug­gest check­ing the trade stat­ist­ics of the European Com­mis­sion.[4]

Tur­key and Iran: trad­ing part­ners, noth­ing more

The point is, hav­ing trade rela­tions with your neigh­bor, espe­cially when this neigh­bor is energy rich and you are des­per­ately short of it as your eco­nomy is grow­ing and your energy needs are ever increas­ing, is only nor­mal. Busi­ness with Iran does not mean an ideo­lo­gical bond nor does it mean you are in love with Ayatol­lahs. Some people are even irrit­ated by the fact that a con­sor­tium of Turk­ish com­pan­ies will oper­ate an air­port in Iran. They think this is solid evid­ence that these two coun­tries are becom­ing one and that Tur­key does not belong to Europe. Maybe someone should remind them of the fact that there are around 50 Ger­man firms that have their own branch offices in Iran and more than 12,000 firms have their own trade rep­res­ent­at­ives in the coun­try and those com­pan­ies have since long been involved in infra­struc­ture and pet­ro­chem­ical pro­jects.[5] The situ­ation is no dif­fer­ent for France or any other lead­ing mem­ber of the EU. Sev­eral French com­pan­ies in the auto­mobile, energy and fin­an­cial sec­tors – includ­ing Peugeot, Renault, Total, BNP Pari­bas and Soci­eté Générale – have hardly reduced the level of busi­ness they do with Iran, accord­ing to the Ger­man For­eign Min­istry (2007) data.[6]

All in all, since the EU and Tur­key share sim­ilar pat­terns of trade rela­tions with Iran, since both the EU and Tur­key are against Iran’s nuc­lear ambi­tions but at the same in favor of a dip­lo­matic solu­tion rather than another mil­it­ary adven­ture for the West, it is sig­ni­fic­antly flawed to claim an ideo­lo­gical bond or “love” rela­tion­ship between the two countries.

[1] European com­mis­sion data on the EU-Iran Trade: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/countries/iran/

[2] European com­mis­sion data on the EU-Iran Trade: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/countries/iran/

[3] Turkish-Iranian trade rela­tions: http://www.irantracker.org/foreign-relations/turkey-iran-foreign-relations

[4] More inform­a­tion and detailed stat­ist­ics can be accessed at: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_113392.pdf

[5] http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=193905 and stat­ist­ics from Iran Cham­ber of commerce

[6] “Ber­lin Says US and France Guilty of Hypo­crisy”, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,507443,00.html

Related posts:

1. The Myths about Tur­key: Part II
   April 3rd, 2011
2. The Myths about Tur­key: Part I
   April 1st, 2011
3. The Myths about Tur­key: Part IV
   April 9th, 2011
4. Rethink­ing the EU’s future: Two play­ers of a game, Tur­key and the EU
   March 14th, 2012
5. Tur­key: Peace pro­spects with the Kurds?
   May 10th, 2013