However, this honeymoon period has also irked the Turkmens, who feel abandoned by Ankara. They feel the Kurds, while improving relations with Ankara, did not match this in their approach to the Turkmens by pushing for more rights for them. They complain that they are the targets in the tension between the Baghdad central government and the Kurdish regional administration. Turkmens say Baghdad and Erbil protect Arabs and Kurds in the Kirkuk area, while Turkmens are left to their own fate.
Muzaffer Aslan, the founder of the Turkmen Front Party who resides in Kirkuk, told Al-Monitor that Maliki wants to give the impression that in the absence of central-government forces there will be anarchy in Kirkuk, while the Kurds send the message that if Kirkuk is not included in the Kurdish region, it will continue to be a target for terrorists.
He says the Kurds feel they have already won Turkey’s close friendship and thus do not feel any urge the help the region's Turkmens.
Kirkuk, like several other settlements in Northern Iraq situated between Iraqi Kurdistan and the central government-controlled areas, is a disputed zone and thus a source of conflict between the Kurds and Baghdad. Last year Maliki sent a special army into these disputed territories and the Kurds retaliated by mobilizing their Peshmerga forces and massing heavy arms. Recent efforts to ease the tensions have failed.
There are several Turkmen settlements in the region which Turkey wants protected. Ankara also feels Kirkuk should be jointly run by the Turks, Kurds and Arabs with a special status and should not be a part of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Iraqi constitution stipulates that a referendum should have been held in Kirkuk by 2007 after a normalization process in the region and a public concensus. But none of that happened, and thus the idea of a referendum became null and void, much to the satisfaction of Ankara and Baghdad. But the Iraqi Kurds say they were misled and are still pushing for a referendum, claiming it will show a majority of the people want the area to be included in the Kurdish region.
So Ankara is left in a dilemma over how to appease the Turkmens and also mending fences with Maliki without alienating the Iraqi Kurds.
Ilnur Cevik served as the editor in chief of the Turkish Daily News between 1983 and 2004 which later became the Hurriyet Daily News. He also published the daily The New Anatolian. He currently hosts a news program "echoes from the world" on Turkish TV Channel A. He served as the special advisor to Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel between 1991 and 1993 and late Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan between 1994 and 1997 on foreign policy and the Kurds.
For the time being, it seems that the Kurds are best positioned to provide help and support to all Turkmen in Iraq. The turkish influence in the KRG is enormous and thus indirectly influence on the Turkmen.
The KRG is not the party who will stop medical care for turkmen as it has happened with the wounded in Kirkuk not allowing planes to land and take turkmen to Turkey for care.
But the kurds have to improve and visualize this "protection" by deeds and not merely words. The turkmen are really in bad shape when are attacked by Al-Qaeda and shia arabs because they feel unprotected.
So who will protect the Turkmen of Iraq? The kurds ar best positioned since they have most to gain with such support.