Relations between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have grown increasingly strained in recent weeks, particularly after Erdogan, a Sunni Muslim, urged the Shiite leadership in Iraq to resolve sectarian tensions, which have escalated in the wake of the recent U.S. military withdrawal from the country.
Maliki responded by telling Erdogan to stop interfering in Iraqi affairs, with the sharp exchange between Baghdad and Ankara taking an alarming turn when several rockets were fired at the Turkish embassy in Iraq last week.
According to Henri Barkey, a Turkey expert at Lehigh University, the recent escalation in tensions is simply the latest and most pointed in a series of diplomatic divergences between Turkey and Iraq, which have found themselves on opposite sides of a growing number of issues since the beginning of the Arab Spring.