Whether Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence vote leads to statehood remains to be seen, but the referendum has led to other impressive things. Ankara today stands together with Tehran and Baghdad — the same neighbors it was slamming for “Persian expansionism” and sectarian policies yesterday. The trilateral front, driven by a shared fear of partition, is hailed as a new Saadabad Pact by some in the Turkish media — a reference to the 1937 nonaggression treaty between the three neighbors plus Afghanistan.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is now Ankara’s No. 1 partner against Iraqi Kurdistan, less than a year after he sparred with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the Turkish military presence near Mosul and Abadi was told to “know his place” because he was below Erdogan’s “quality” and “level.”

A symbolic number of Iraqi troops joined the Turkish army this week in military drills at the border with Iraqi Kurdistan, with soldiers waving Turkish and Iraqi flags from the tanks. Erdogan, meanwhile, sought to show how wrathful a big state could be, threatening to starve the Iraqi Kurds. “As soon as we start implementing sanctions, [they] will be stuck. Once we turn off the [oil pipeline] valve, it will be over — no income whatsoever for them,” Erdogan said Sept. 26. “When trucks stop [shipping goods] to northern Iraq, they will be left without food and clothing.”

Besides threats to close the border, Turkey’s hitherto contribution to the new partnership includes the suspension of commercial flights to Erbil and Sulaimaniyah at the behest of Baghdad, cutting dialogue with Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a snub to Omer Merani, the Ankara envoy of Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the removal of three Iraqi Kurdish TV channels from a Turkish satellite.