A decade ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — then the country's prime minister — and Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani were sworn adversaries and would not be seen in the same room together. A firebrand, Barzani regularly pushed Ankara's buttons on Kurdish autonomy, and the Turkish government responded with airstrikes on Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) positions in Iraqi Kurdistan's Mount Qandil region. Today, this odd couple has just as much in common to keep them together as they do problems that are splitting them apart. As we anticipated, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) went through the motions of trying to form a government with its secular rivals in the Republican People's Party, failed, and is now headed for early elections in late November.