Turkey weighs pivotal oil deal with Kurdistan Kurdish and Turkish leaders have had a budding courtship for the past five years. But now Turkey isnegotiating a massive deal in which a new Turkish company, backed by the government, is proposing to drill for oil and gas in Kurdistan and build pipelines to transport those resources to international markets. The negotiations were confirmed by four senior Turkish officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of political sensitivities. "Turkey hasn't needed to ask what we think of this, because we tell them at every turn," said a senior U.S. official involved in Middle East policymaking, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to talk with the press. The official said any bilateral energy deals with Kurdistan would "threaten the unity of Iraq and push [Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki closer to Iran." Kurdistan has already staked out significant autonomy, providing its own public services, controlling airports and borders, and commanding police and army forces. The energy deal with Turkey would all but sever Kurdistan's economic dependence on Baghdad, which is perhaps the primary tie that still binds the two sides. "We are having serious discussions with the [Turkish] company," Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said. We hope they participate in the region. The Turkish government has not yet made a final decision. Energy Minister Taner Yildiz is leading a review of the deal, according to the senior Turkish officials, and expects to issue a formal recommendation to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan by the end of the year. Turkey's moves come at an especially volatile time for the region. Along Turkey's southern border, in the midst of a civil war, Syria's Kurdish minority has gained control of a large expanse of territory. That instability has worried Turkish leaders, who have used their sway over the Iraqi Kurdish leadership - both Prime Minister Barzani and Kurdistan's powerful president, Massoud Barzani, the uncle of the prime minister - to help ensure that they exert a benign influence in Syria. Iraq is also in crisis. On Nov. 16, a minor confrontation between Kurdish security forces and Iraqi Army soldiers combusted into a deadly firefight. Since then, both sides have deployed thousands of troops, as well as tanks and artillery, to either side of their contested border, where they still remain within firing range. Erdogan has left little doubt where his sympathies lie, accusing Maliki of "leading Iraq toward a civil war." Yet Turkey's embrace of the Iraqi Kurds is not just a function of personal enmity. Rather, it represents a deliberate strategic shift that has upended the conventional wisdom that once governed Turkish foreign policy toward Iraq.