The military posture of northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government to defend itself against advancing Islamist rebels spotlights a reversal in one of the region’s most toxic relationships: Between Turkey and the Kurds. In previous years, Kurdish assertiveness—even in neighboring Iraq—was often countered by Turkey, which for more than a quarter century was locked in a deadly conflict with Kurdish separatists in its own country before launching peace talks in 2012. But since the U.S. invasion of Iraq more than a decade ago, Turkey has built close ties to the Kurdish government in its regional capital of Erbil, Iraq, expanding bilateral trade and coordinating vital policy issues, including the civil war in Syria. Underscoring that trend, Turkey has kept mum on Erbil’s mobilization to defend its borders this past week by deploying its Peshmerga troops into the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk. In past decades, Turkey has fiercely objected […]