Post-revolutionary Iran and Turkey at 40: Pragmatism and convergence

Source:Brookings Instituse Date:05Apr2019

For those who wish to understand how  Turkey and Iran can compete  in Syria, but cooperate in economics.

In due course, Turkey learned to co-exist with Iran’s new regime and during the subsequent 40 years, relations between the two countries settled into a pattern of ups and downs from that of previous decades, if not centuries. The 1639 Qasr-i Shirin treaty between the Safavid and Ottoman Empires, which ended long rounds of territorial wars between them, left a legacy of coexistence and a disinclination on both sides toward escalation.
After the Iranian revolution, this tradition of moderation evolved into pragmatism that enabled mutual tolerance between their diametrically opposed regimes. Ironically, in recent years as Turkey’s secular credentials and democracy have weakened, a degree of regime convergence around political Islam, albeit representative of two distinct branches of Islam, has followed.