Regional Studies Journal

The idea of the research is concentrated around a desire of both Turkey and the Kurdistan region of Iraq to develop relations between them to the level of energy strategic partnership after 2011, driven by several factors, including the need for both parties to deepen that cooperation at the current stage. Turkey needs oil and gas from the Kurdistan region at low prices to secure its huge energy needs and the possibility of developing it and making it one of its most important resources in the future. The Kurdistan Regional Government, on its part, also needs to produce energy and export it through Turkey to secure its growing financial needs, especially after the escalation of disputes with the central government in Baghdad over a set of contentious issues such as sending the region’s share of the budget, the oil and gas law, and others. The research came out with a number of conclusions that focused on the necessity for this partnership not to be at the expense of bilateral relations with Iraq, Turkey should seek to solve the existing problems between the two countries in all fields, and to contribute to settling differences between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government if it really wants to continue its partnership with the Kurdistan Regional Government with prior approval and coordination with the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

The phenomenon of human trafficking is one of the biggest challenges facing the international community in the present era that it makes human life as a commodity by determining a financial value for it. Human trafficking is the third-largest illegal trade in the world that comes after arms trade and drug trafficking. It is considered a contemporary face of slavery; the estimated amount of money annually of this criminal activity is billions of dollars.
It is also a form of transnational organized crime whereby millions of people are trafficked across international borders annually or within the borders of states to be trafficked by international gangs and professional criminal networks that have professionalized this field and made it the focus of their activities and the main source of their income. This phenomenon extends to more than one country, which in turn led to an increase in the number of its victims, who are often people of poor countries or countries suffering from the disasters of wars and internal conflicts.

Job corruption is a very widespread global and a deep-rooted phenomenon that has had wide dimensions in which many different factors overlap, and it differs from one society to another. The phenomenon of corruption has recently gained the attention of researchers in various disciplines, such as law, politics, economics, and sociology. It was defined by different definitions until it became a phenomenon in which a society or political system is hardly devoid of it.
Evidence confirms that job corruption disproportionately harms citizens, and hinders efforts to achieve the state's goals for reconstruction and development. This is because job corruption weakens democracy, good governance, and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, diminishes the quality of life, and allows organized crime, terrorism, and other dangers that threaten human security and stability.

The Balkan region occupies a great importance in Turkish foreign policy imposed by several strategic, political, cultural and religious factors, and this importance has increased after the dismantling of the state of Yugoslavia and the end of the Cold War and the independence of the countries that were within Yugoslavia, which allowed Turkey to adopt a new policy based on building bridges of trust with these countries that are considered Turkey’s entrance to the European continent, and with the Justice and Development Party taking over the reins of government in Turkey, the party pursued a policy based on a number of principles set by “Ahmet Davutoglu” in his book “Strategic Depth”, which drew the map of the Turkish foreign policy on top of this Principles "whistleblowing" and "soft diplomacy" This policy has provided Turkey with the possibility of establishing advanced relations with many Balkan countries in various fields, and has employed for this purpose many possibilities and institutions

The concept of human security is one of the important concepts in human sciences, especially the political ones, by its strong association with the concept of security and national security. The human being and his security are the focus of its concern which explains its reliance on human rights as a standard to achieve it, so the liberation of the human being from fear and need are its two basic pillars, that is why it focuses on addressing all risks that threaten human life. Human security is characterized by universality, comprehensiveness, and close interdependence between its components. Global interest in it has increased after the escalation of terrorist operations, as they were accompanied by violations of human rights.
As for Iraq, the reality of human security indicates grave violations that Iraqi people have been subjected to since 2003, given the successive waves of violence, especially terrorism which left millions of displaced people, refugees, orphans, widows, and other societal problems that will need to be addressed for a long time to get rid of.

The research highlights the human right to a clean environment, which is considered one of the new rights that is classified as a kind of solidarity rights. The research aims to introduce this right as well as to identify the development of the idea of this right in Iraqi political thought through the study of Iraqi political thought after 2014, beside a study of the features of the development of the idea through the practices that took place in the political environment of Iraq, as there are some practices and events that contributed to the definition of the danger of violating this right or losing it and not enjoying it by people, thus the features of awareness emerged on the necessity of this right within Iraqi society and sounding the alarm of losing it and not enjoying it; Sometimes an individual does not realize the importance of one of the human rights that he enjoys except after he realizes that this right is threatened with being lost or that its loss will endanger the enjoyment of other rights, such as the right to life.

In the beginning, it can be said that we can see the state while we live in a pre-modern society, which Thomas Hobbes spoke about and narrated with his intellectual propositions before it was established as the main actor in international relations. It developed as a result of the development of human life, its nature, and its political, social, economic, and technological-informatics systems. So we find it different from the past tense; Also, its doers are not what they were yesterday. It witnessed transformations in its nature, systems, interactions, and the diversity of issues and crises. The new international order was distinguished by the emergence of non-state actors and international organizations as major actors in the international system. They began to compete with the state for its roles and they now have interdependent roles and coherent patterns that transcend the national sovereign borders of the state. They exercise the intermediary role between society on the one hand and the state on the other hand and assume the role of masters due to the growth of their role and the decline of the state's role vis-à-vis them. Thus, the study tries to show the impact of extremist actors on the phenomenon of political instability in the Middle East region; creating chaos and lack of strategic balance at the local, regional and international levels.

There are a set of internal and external variables that influence through various forms in shaping the foreign policies of countries. The Kurdish presence in Turkey and Syria is a clear example of this which affected the accounts, decisions, and orientations of Turkish foreign policy towards Syria, especially after 2011. Historically, in the 1980s and 1990s, when Syria supported the "PKK", which is an existential threat to Turkey and its national security, Turkey adopted a policy of strict nature towards Syria to reach the brink of war, until the matter was settled in the 1990s. After the Syrian revolution in 2011, the Kurdish variable returned to impact strongly the Turkish foreign policy towards Syria after the growing influence of both the Kurds of Syria and the "PKK", and their intent to establish an independent federal entity in Syria, which raised Turkish fears, that turned into political and military reactions, especially in northern Syria, to contain this threat.