Alwaght- As the West Asia is scene to lively diplomatuc visits, Iraq's Interior Minister Othman al-Qanemi flew to Doha to meet Qatari officials.
Over the past weeks, as coronavirus pandemic wave eased, West Asia region, especially the Arab countries, became center of the diplomatic visits during which senior officials traveled to other countries.
Although according to a statement published by the Iraqi Interior Ministry al-Qanemi's visit to Doha was at the official invitation of the Qatari government to participate in the 13th International Exhibition of Homeland Security and Civil Defense, issues beyond the exhibition should be brought in the spotlight. The fact is that both Doha and Baghdad each seek their specific objectives behind the push to boot bilateral ties.
Doha's bid to get a toehold in Iraq
According to news sources, al-Qanemi first met with Qatari Prime Minister Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani discussing bilateral relations between Qatar and Iraq and ways to support and develop it, especially in security field. The two Arab countries find cooperation and partnership at all levels in security issues a need. Actually, the security issues in the region are going in a way that makes security partnership a must for these countries.
As Qatar has its own view of security, Iraq has its own security goals to realize.
Following the imposition of sanctions and the economic blockade on Qatar by four Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia in 2017, Doha, unlike in the past, actively intervened in the regional affairs and opposed the policies of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. In the meantime, it is noteworthy that Abu Dhabi and Riyadh have made great efforts in recent years to exert political and security influence in Iraq. Even this approach led them to meddle in the Iraqi protests that started in 2019.
As Saudi Arabia and the UAE sought security and political sway in Iraq, Qatar also found many reasons to increase its influence in Baghdad in the face of these rivals. Qatar, moreover, intends to increase its security cooperation with Iraq, and perhaps even to support Turkish policies in Baghdad. But its top goal behind the cooperation boost with Iraq is prevention of the Saudi and Emirati influence in that country.
On the other side of the story, Iraq pursues its specific goals behind security engagements with Qatar. In the years following the the rise of ISIS, according to many reports and documents, some Arab countries have been financial and logistical sponsors of the terrorist group. Even before it, mainly after 2003, security reports indicated that the Persian Gulf states had supported Al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. Now Baghdad intends to walk a tight line between the Arab countries in order to ease its concerns about their support to terrorism in Iraq.
Economy-centered Iraq foreign policy under PM al-Kadhimi
Over the past months, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s government demonstrated a fusy sensitivity to salvage Iraq's crisis-torn economy and set its foreign policy to this aim. In recent months, al-Kadhimi made special efforts at the regional level to attract foreign aid and investment. To put it differently, experiencing nightmarish five years as a result of ISIS's resource consuming emergence, Iraq in recent years has been in dire straits economically. Thus, al-Kadhimi’s economy-centered foreign policy seems, to a large extent, logical.
Aimed at attending the Milipol Qatar security exhibition, al-Qanemi's visit was motivated by economic drives. In recent months, the Iraqi government entered into negotiations with various countries to attract foreign investment and increase the level of economic cooperation, one of which can be seen in the visit of Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein to Saudi Arabia in early March. Aa an economically strong country, Qatar has special finance and trade cooperation attraction for othercountries. This gives reason to suggest that by sending his interior minister to Qatar, al-Kadhimi has his eyes on economic cooperation and aids.
