Turan Research Center

The Development Road is a road-and-rail corridor stretching from Iraq’s southern ports near Basra northward to Turkey and then onto the European market. The project is estimated to cost around $17 billion and seeks to turn Iraq into a regional transit hub. Its core geopolitical purpose is to transform Iraq from a state heavily relying on oil exports and plagued by internal instability into a logistics bridge between Asia, the Gulf and Europe.

This is not the first time that the Development Road is being actively discussed. Iraq and Turkey have long expressed interest in the realization of the project. In Iraq, the ambition to position the country as a key transit artery originated in the Cold War era, but could not be realized during the turmoil of the last decades of Saddam Husein’s rule and the chaos that ensued the US invasion. But the Iraqi ambition also has deeper historical roots: the region served as a major transit route for ancient and medieval silk roads linking the Persian Gulf with the Mediterranean world.

Yet, what makes the present attempt to build the project more realistic is Turkey’s growing interest as a result of changed geopolitical circumstances. Turkey has been consistent in its support for the Development Road. One major factor that drives Ankara is the fear that it might be cut out from new routes of regional connectivity. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which was proposed in September 2023 and is supported by the United States, Israel, the EU and key Middle Eastern countries explicitly bypassed Turkey.

Read the full article on The Turkiye Analyst at the American Foreign Policy Council.

Emil Avdaliani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center.