It's no secret that there is little love lost between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They have exchanged barbs and insults and accused each other of stoking sectarian divisions in the region along the age-old Sunni-Shiite fault line.

Events, however, are forcing a new evaluation in Ankara and Baghdad of bilateral ties. A recent spate of high-level visits is being taken by diplomats as a sign that the sides are trying to patch up differences for a host of pragmatic reasons.

As an indication of how bad things had gotten, Erdogan in January 2012 accused Maliki of being oppressive and warned him not to turn into a latter-day Yazid. The reference was to the Umayyad caliph whose forces defeated the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein ibn Ali, and his supporters in 680 in Karbala, Iraq, killing them all including Hussein’s infant son, Ali al-Asghar ibn Husayn.

Karbala has a central place in Shiite history and the events there nearly 1400 years ago continue to reverberate. To liken Maliki — who is Shiite — to Yazid is particularly insulting to the Iraqi prime minister and his supporters.