Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2024, pp. 74-75
Talking Türkiye
By Jonathan Gorvett
SOON AFTER ISRAELI TROOPS began their October invasion of southern Lebanon, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed the Turkish parliament in Ankara. “The next place [Israel] will set its eyes on,” he said, “will be our homeland.”
Israel had not expressed any intention of attacking Türkiye, but Erdogan’s words highlight growing concern in Ankara over the widening regional conflict. They also highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of Türkiye’s current position in the region.
Indeed, in recent years the country has shifted from being an unlikely ally of Israel to a champion of those resisting it. Now, though, Ankara’s ability to influence any of the multiple sides in the conflict seems increasingly in doubt.
At the same time, however, one other outcome might well be a strengthening of Ankara’s position in relation to a long-term regional rival—Iran.
ALLIES AND ENEMIES
While the 1990s and early 2000s were a golden age of Turkish-Israeli relations, these began to sour after the election of Erdogan’s pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002. The government of then-Prime Minister Erdogan grew increasingly critical of Israel’s actions.
This reached a nadir in 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara—a ship containing humanitarian aid and mainly Turkish pro-Palestinian activists heading for Gaza—and killed 10 of them.
This unleashed a stream of invective against Israel from Erdogan and other Turkish officials, repositioning Türkiye as an increasingly popular voice around the Arab world. It also sent Türkiye’s relations with Israel into a nose dive. While trade has continued between them, those relations have never really recovered.
ARAB SPRING—AND AFTER
In 2011, Erdogan also championed the side of those rebelling around the Arab world, with Ankara sending support to those fighting the Assad regime in Syria, which included Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Türkiye also backed the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), who took control in Egypt. Hamas was originally the Palestinian branch of MB, giving Ankara some influence with the leaders of Gaza.
Intervention in Syria, however, put Türkiye at odds with Iran and its ally Hezbollah, who have supported Assad with troops and equipment.
Nowadays, however, Türkiye has been renormalizing its relations with Arab regimes. This has meant distancing itself from the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to win favor in Egypt. As part of this normalization strategy, Erdogan has also recently reached out to Assad—a move currently still rebuffed—and Israel.
October 7, 2023, threw a monkey wrench into this process. As the Palestinian casualties have mounted, Ankara has used increasingly harsh rhetoric to condemn Israel. When Israeli soldiers murdered Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi on Sept. 6, 2024, in the occupied West Bank, President Erdogan highlighted this as an example of how the Israelis “attack barbarically and shed blood indiscriminately.” Then, at the U.N. General Assembly in late September, he likened Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Hitler.
However, when Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27, Erdogan’s condemnation was a lot more muted.
“Erdogan was calm and measured, expressing concern about civilian casualties,” Murat Aslan from Hasan Kalyoncu University in Gaziantep and a senior researcher with the Ankara-based think tank SETA, told the Washington Report.
Why that was so illustrates much of the current complexity of Türkiye’s position in the region.
SECTARIANISM VS REALPOLITIK
For some, this difference in responses is a result of deep sectarian divisions in Islam.
Türkiye is largely Sunni, while Iran and Hezbollah are Shi’a and the Assad regime is dominated by Alawites—a group traditionally close to Shi’ism.
While traditionally, Turkish political Islam has been anti-sectarian, some have seen this Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis as a “Shi’a Crescent” hostile to the interests of Türkiye and Sunni Islam.
Thus, when Nasrallah was killed, Türkiye’s largely Sunni anti-Assad rebel allies in northwestern Syria celebrated. For others, though, “Erdogan’s restraint was not sectarianism, but realpolitik,” Aslan told the Washington Report. “Lebanon is not just Hezbollah.”
In other words, Erdogan was acknowledging that Nasrallah was not popular with all parties with whom Türkiye has to work.
WIDENING CONCERNS
At the same time, Ankara has concerns that expansion of the war in Gaza into Lebanon may have other repercussions. The uprising in Syria led to some 4 million refugees fleeing to Türkiye, with initial sympathy turning to resentment in many cases. Ankara does not want to see an additional wave of refugees.
“There is concern escalation might ignite other dynamics, too,” says Aslan. These include a heightening of conflict in Syria and Iraq, where Türkiye has troops currently fighting Kurdish People’s Protection Units and Kurdish Workers’ Party forces.
Ankara sees these as linked terrorist separatist organizations, with networks inside Türkiye itself. AKP members often see these groups as backed by Israel, leading to the concern expressed by Erdogan that a wider regional conflict might lead to an increase in attacks in Türkiye.
BATTLE FOR INFLUENCE
For some, the current harsh rhetoric against Israel in fact highlights the inability of Türkiye to influence events in the region.
“In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Türkiye was seen as having an important balancing role,” Gonul Tol, founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey Program, told the Washington Report. “After October 7, many thought Türkiye could do the same between Israel and Hamas. But this didn’t happen, as Türkiye doesn’t have leverage with either.”
Indeed, Türkiye now finds itself with little influence over any of the main actors in the current conflict, either in Lebanon or Palestine.
Yet the conflict may impact the influence of another regional power—Iran, with which Türkiye is “not so much a rival as a regional competitor with a rival vision for the Middle East,” Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, regional director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, told the Washington Report.
This competition plays out around the region and also in the South Caucasus, where Türkiye supports Azerbaijan, but Iran has traditionally backed Armenia.
If the current conflict weakens that power, “This may pave the way for Türkiye to realize its goals elsewhere in the region,” Tol says.
As the casualties mount, however, such an outcome may come with a heavy price.
Jonathan Gorvett is a free-lance writer specializing on European and Middle Eastern affairs.
