Key Points from the Article by Prime Minister Ali Faleh Al-Zaidi Published by the Turkish Anadolu Agency ••••• 🔵 Over the past decades, the relationship between Iraq and Türkiye has been viewed through the lens of issues requiring management: security, water, trade, and border movement. 🔵 Today, our region stands before a different opportunity that calls on us to look to the future with greater ambition. 🔵 The question is no longer how to manage our shared challenges, but how to transform them into opportunities that create prosperity for the Iraqi and Turkish peoples. 🔵 Iraq has chosen the path of stability, reform, and development, setting its priorities around building a strong economy, an effective state, and balanced foreign relations that make regional cooperation a cornerstone of growth. 🔵 Türkiye possesses an advanced industrial base, a strategic location, and extensive expertise in infrastructure, energy, and transportation. 🔵 The combined potential of our two countries extends beyond a shared border to encompass a vast space for building one of the region’s most significant economic partnerships. 🔵 The world is redrawing trade maps and supply chains, and economic corridors have become a key element of international competition. 🔵 Iraq and Türkiye have a historic opportunity to transform their geographic location into economic value, positioning themselves as a vital link connecting the Gulf, Asia, and Europe. 🔵 The Development Road is not merely an Iraqi project; it is a regional initiative that redefines the concept of economic connectivity in the Middle East. 🔵 The Development Road not only shortens the time required to transport goods, but also creates new cities, industrial zones, investment opportunities, and thousands of jobs, while providing the region with a new economic artery linking ports to global markets. 🔵 The security of Iraq and the security of Türkiye require close cooperation based on mutual respect for sovereignty and joint efforts to combat terrorism and organized crime, for development can only flourish in a secure environment. 🔵 Water is no longer merely a technical issue; it has become a development issue that affects the future of millions of citizens. 🔵 We look forward to the joint management of the water file based on mutual interests, scientific cooperation, and investment in modern technologies, in a manner that achieves water and food security for our peoples. 🔵 The Middle East needs new success stories, and Iraq and Türkiye are capable of presenting one of the most important of them if they succeed in moving from traditional cooperation to genuine integration. 🔵 Every joint investment, every new factory, every transportation link, and every energy project will be an investment in the stability of the entire region. 🔵 Stability cannot be achieved through conflicts, but through joint projects, nor is it built through competition among neighbors, but through integration between them. ••••• Media Office of the Prime Minister July 28, 2026