Desecuritization of Turkish Foreign Policy Towards Northern Iraq: Actor, Context and Audience

Since the 1961 Kurdish rebellion in Iraq, Turkish policymakers have been concerned about the possibility of similar developments taking place in Turkey, where a large Kurdish minority exists. Therefore, since the 1960s, Turkish policymakers have perceived the possible emergence of a Kurdish autonomous region or an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq as an existential threat to Turkey. This threat perception increased further when the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) insurgency initiated its armed struggle against Turkey from the early 1980s onwards. However, under Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, especially from 2007/2008 onwards, the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government gradually turned into an important regional ally for Turkey. Turkish policymakers abandoned their previous discourse, which emphasized the links between the PKK insurgents and the Iraqi Kurds, and began to refer to the latter as Turkey’s "brothers" and "economic partners" in the region. This paper explains how this radical foreign policy change became possible within the framework of the theory of securitization/desecuritization. Although there is a vast literature on this topic, scholars have yet to sufficiently theorize how different aspects of this process, namely the (de)securitizing actor, socio-political context, and the audience interact in such a way as to enable securitization or desecuritization of various issues. Thus, this paper not only presents a theoretical analysis and uncovers the major dynamics of an important change in Turkish foreign policy, but also contributes to the debates about the need to clarify different aspects of the processes of securitization and desecuritization.