If Tehran is crushed, the Middle East will go from a tense equilibrium to a violent detonation, and Ankara may very well be the next target
The position of Türkiye on the Israeli-American military campaign against Iran is unmistakably clear, and in recent weeks it has grown even more resolute.
Ankara does not regard what is unfolding as a localized exchange of strikes, nor as merely another episode in the long history of Middle Eastern confrontation. It sees it as a step toward a full-scale regional catastrophe, the consequences of which could affect every state from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. In the Turkish view, strikes on Iran are not an instrument of regional pacification, but a mechanism for further destabilization and explosion. That is precisely why President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, and representatives of the presidential administration have issued statement after statement marked by condemnation, alarm, and explicit warnings about the risk of a major war.
As early as February 28, 2026, when the Israeli and American attack on Iran entered an open phase, Erdoğan issued a statement condemning the strikes on Iran and calling for diplomacy and a ceasefire in order to prevent the entire region from being drawn into a wider conflict. On the same day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye declared that Ankara was deeply concerned by actions that violated international law and endangered civilian lives. Turkish diplomacy condemned the provocations driving the escalation of violence, called for the attacks to cease immediately, and once again emphasized that regional problems can only be resolved by peaceful means, while Türkiye itself stands ready to support mediation efforts. That same day, Burhanettin Duran, head of communications at the Presidency, observed that what was taking place threatened not only the immediate parties involved, but also stability and the security of civilian populations across a far broader geography, and therefore mechanisms of dialogue and negotiation had to be urgently restored. Even in these first reactions, the full logic of Ankara’s position was already evident. Military escalation against Iran cannot be contained within Iranian borders. It will inevitably spill across the entire region.
Two days later, on March 2, Erdoğan sharpened the tone of his assessment. According to Reuters, he described the American and Israeli strikes on Iran as a clear violation of international law and stated that Türkiye shared the pain of the Iranian people. This was no longer merely a diplomatic formula, but a deliberately firm political stance. The Turkish president also said that Ankara would intensify its contacts at every level until a ceasefire was achieved and the space for diplomacy restored. Particularly striking was his warning that Türkiye did not want to see war, massacre, tension, and mass violence along its borders, and that without the necessary steps the consequences could prove extraordinarily grave for both regional and global security. In another important formulation, Erdoğan stated plainly that no one would be able to bear the burden of economic and geopolitical uncertainty created by such a period, and that this fire had to be extinguished before it burned even more fiercely. This is a highly characteristic idea in Erdoğan’s political language. He was speaking not only of morality and law, but of a practical understanding that war against Iran would become a factory of chaos for the entire Middle East.
Read more Iran shows the world the limits of US powerThe following day, on March 3, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed that Ankara was in contact with all sides for the sake of ending the war and returning to negotiations. According to Reuters, he stressed that Türkiye was carefully undertaking the necessary initiatives with all of its interlocutors in the interest of regional peace and regarded it as critically important to preserve the stability of both Iran and the region as a whole. Fidan explicitly warned that the conflict could affect energy supplies, and that any impact on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant share of global oil trade passes, could sharply broaden the crisis. This remark is especially important for understanding the Turkish position. Ankara views war not only through the lens of military maps, but through the prism of transport arteries, energy markets, trade routes, and internal social consequences. For Türkiye, as a major import-dependent economy, war near the Strait of Hormuz means not abstract fluctuations on commodity exchanges, but the prospect of rising prices, inflationary pressure, and a new wave of instability within the country itself.
This connection between geopolitics and domestic resilience is fundamental for Türkiye. According to Reuters, the country imports around 50 billion cubic meters of gas annually, including 14.3 billion cubic meters in the form of LNG. Reuters also reported that the Turkish authorities themselves had acknowledged the weight of the energy burden on the national economy and the broad dependence of consumers on tariff subsidies. Although Ankara has in recent years been actively diversifying supplies, building flexible infrastructure, and concluding new contracts, the structural vulnerability remains. In other words, every serious shock to the regional energy architecture is automatically transformed for Türkiye into the risk of more expensive imports, rising production costs, pressure on the budget, intensified inflation, and a deterioration in social well-being. Turkish warnings about the destructive consequences of war against Iran are grounded in a direct calculation of national interest.
Yet it would be a mistake to reduce Ankara’s position to economics alone. Türkiye proceeds from the conviction that militarily crushing Iran will not bring peace. On the contrary, it would destroy one of the key elements of the regional balance and open the way to a new chain of wars, proxy conflicts, and internal destabilization stretching from Iraq and Syria to the Caucasus and the Eastern Mediterranean. That is the core of Ankara’s strategic fear. The Turkish authorities harbor no illusions about Iranian policy. Türkiye and Iran have a long history of rivalry in Syria, Iraq, the South Caucasus, and over transport corridors. Yet that is precisely why the Turkish position carries particular weight. Ankara does not support Iran as a value-based ally. It opposes the forcible dismantling of Iran because it regards such a scenario as even more destructive for the very structure of regional order. Erdoğan and Fidan are, in effect, making it clear that a fragile, nervous, and conflict-ridden balance is still preferable to the total collapse of the system, after which the entire region would enter a state of permanent detonation.
Over the past two weeks, this logic has acquired an even darker dimension. On March 12, Hakan Fidan stated that Ankara was categorically opposed to any plans aimed at provoking civil war in Iran and inflaming conflict along ethnic or religious lines. He also stressed that the ongoing war in the Middle East must end as soon as possible and that Türkiye was making intensive efforts to stop it. This formulation is of enormous significance. In effect, the Turkish foreign minister identified the scenario Ankara fears most of all – not merely the weakening of Iran, but the triggering of its internal disintegration. For Türkiye, civil war in Iran would not mean a simple shift in the balance of power, but the emergence of a vast zone of instability in immediate proximity to its borders, with the inevitable spillover of crisis beyond Iranian territory.
Read more Is Iran facing the ‘Yugoslav scenario’?These fears are not abstract. On March 9 and 10, the Turkish side already confronted the direct consequences of the expanding war. According to Reuters, after a missile incident in which Iranian ballistic missiles entered Turkish airspace and were intercepted by NATO air defenses, Ankara informed Tehran that such a violation was unacceptable. In a conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Hakan Fidan made it clear that Türkiye would take protective measures if such incidents were repeated. The very fact that Iranian missiles began entering Turkish airspace shows that, for Ankara, this war has already ceased to be external. It is quite literally approaching Türkiye’s borders and touching upon Turkish sovereignty. Under such conditions, Ankara’s condemnation of the strikes on Iran becomes not an ideological posture, but a form of self-defense. Türkiye is seeking to prevent the moment when someone else’s war is transformed into a crisis of its own.
The Turkish president emphasized precisely this point in those days. On March 11, Erdoğan stated that the war in Iran had to be stopped before the entire region was thrown into the flames. In substance, this was a continuation of his earlier line – diplomacy must be given a chance before the spiral of violence engulfs the whole Middle East. Official Turkish communications over the following two days also showed that Ankara had intensified its diplomatic activity and was speaking publicly about the need to prevent any further spread of the Iranian crisis. On the website of the Directorate of Communications at the Presidency, formulas appeared stating that Türkiye was conducting intensive diplomacy to prevent the expansion of the spiral of violence centered around Iran, and that keeping the country away from this fiery vortex was the highest priority. These expressions are revealing in themselves. For Ankara, what is taking place is no longer merely a crisis in a neighboring country, but a vortex of fire capable of pulling in everyone around it.
Against this background, the deeper motivation of Turkish policy becomes clearer. Türkiye remembers all too well how earlier attempts to remake the Middle East by force ended. Iraq, Syria, Libya, the destruction of institutions, massive refugee flows, the rise of armed groups, grey zones of smuggling, the degradation of security, and blows to tourism, trade, and domestic stability – for Türkiye, all of this is not theory, but lived reality. That is why strikes on Iran are seen in Ankara as another step down the same path, only on a far larger scale. If even the disintegration of Syria generated a long trail of instability lasting for years, then the destabilization of Iran, a country of different territorial, demographic, and geopolitical weight, could create a crisis of a far greater order. This is exactly what Turkish officials are trying to convey when they warn of the risk of a broad war and insist on the urgent return to negotiations.
Another key point is that Ankara sees in Israel’s actions not merely a response to immediate threats, but a broader strategy of forcibly remaking the region. This assessment can be read both in the statements of the Turkish president and in the language of Turkish diplomacy about provocations, destabilization, and attempts to sabotage diplomatic mechanisms. The very fact that Türkiye defines what is happening as a provocation leading to an expansion of violence shows that Ankara does not regard the Israeli line as defensive in any narrow sense. On the contrary, there is concern in the Turkish capital that after Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, the next stage of pressure may be directed against other centers of power and against any actor that obstructs Israel’s military-political expansion.
Read more The war on Iran could remake the worldTürkiye belongs precisely to that category of actors. It has its own military, diplomatic, and geoeconomic agenda, one that does not coincide with Israel’s. Consequently, within Turkish strategic thinking, the defeat of Iran does not appear as the end of the conflict. It appears as the possible beginning of the next cycle of pressure against the remaining independent regional powers, among which Türkiye occupies the foremost place. This idea is not always stated officially in explicit terms, but it is clearly present as an analytical conclusion that is exerting ever greater influence on Turkish behavior.
Ankara’s awareness of this danger is nourished not only by its own strategic calculations, but also by statements already emanating from Israel. As early as February 23, 2026, Al Jazeera reported that against the backdrop of preparations for a strike on Iran, Israeli politicians were increasingly shifting their attention to Türkiye as the next regional rival. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated at the time that Israel must not turn a blind eye to Türkiye, described it as a new threat, and argued that action was needed both against the danger from Tehran and against hostility from Ankara. In the Israeli political arena, a logic was thereby effectively set in motion according to which, after Iran, the next major adversary was increasingly being viewed as Türkiye.
This line was articulated even more openly in early March, when Turkish and regional publications cited Bennett as saying that after Iran, Israel would not remain passive, and that what followed would depend on Türkiye’s own choices. That is why Ankara sees in the current war not only an attempt to break Iran, but also preparation for the next round of pressure directed toward the Turkish vector. For the Turkish leadership, this means something very simple. In Israeli strategic logic, the defeat of Iran does not conclude the chain of conflicts. It merely brings closer a new stage in the struggle for regional dominance, one in which Türkiye may become the next target.
That is precisely why Türkiye is doing several things at once. It condemns the strikes on Iran as violations of international law. It warns of the risk of regional and even global destabilization. It underscores the threat to civilians and to regional stability. It seeks to launch mediation formats and keep diplomatic channels from collapsing altogether. And finally, it is strengthening its own defensive preparedness, because it already understands that if the conflict continues, Turkish territory, the Turkish economy, and Turkish strategic interests will come under direct pressure. In this sense, Turkish policy is not contradictory, but consistently pragmatic. Ankara’s condemnation of the Israeli-American campaign against Iran is fully compatible with its determination not to be drawn into this war and not to allow it to cross onto its own territory.
Read more A new war is threatening the Eurasian economy, and it’s not IranSeen more broadly, the position of Türkiye reflects the crisis of the entire Middle Eastern system. The region has long lived in a condition of chronic instability, yet until now there remained certain barriers that prevented this instability from merging into one all-consuming blaze. In Ankara’s view, strikes on Iran destroy precisely those barriers. They fuse into a single arc several crises at once – Iranian, Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, energy, transport, and migratory. Türkiye understands that, in the event of further escalation, it will no longer be possible to separate the military front clearly from the economic one. War will immediately turn into surging energy prices, disruptions to logistics, investor anxiety, weakening currencies, rising security expenditures, blows to exports and tourism, and ultimately heightened social unease within the states of the region. The Turkish leadership, having confronted serious economic challenges in recent years, understands perfectly well how dangerous such a combination of external shock and internal strain can become.
That is why Erdoğan’s words that no one will be able to bear the burden of economic and geopolitical uncertainty do not sound like a figure of speech, but like the concentrated expression of the entire Turkish position. This position proceeds from a cold understanding of reality. Türkiye cannot afford to view war against Iran as someone else’s problem. It has too long a frontier with unstable zones, too close a connection to regional trade and energy flows, and too serious an experience of living through the consequences of neighboring wars. For Ankara, the Iranian crisis is almost a mathematical formula for future upheavals if it is not stopped in time. Turkish officials have been repeating exactly this, in different words, since the end of February – the attacks must be halted immediately, diplomacy must be given a chance, the region must not be drawn into a ring of fire, and at least the remnants of order must be preserved before they are washed away by a new wave of force politics.
Ultimately, Turkish condemnation of the actions of Israel and the US against Iran rests on three pillars. The first is legal. Ankara describes the strikes as violations of international law and sovereignty. The second is political. Türkiye believes that such actions accelerate the spiral of regional violence and sabotage diplomatic alternatives. The third is strategic and socio-economic. The Turkish leadership understands that a regional war will strike not only on the battlefield, but in the everyday life of states. It will hit energy, trade, logistics, budgets, and social stability, and for Türkiye the consequences could be especially severe. It is at the intersection of these three motives that the current hard Turkish line is formed. This is not a gesture of solidarity, nor an ideological improvisation. It is the expression of a national instinct for self-preservation by a state that sees a great fire approaching its own home.
And so today Ankara is telling the world something very simple, yet profoundly important. War against Iran will not bring pacification to the Middle East. It will bring the collapse of existing restraints, new front lines, new economic shocks, and a new logic of endless escalation. And once Iran disappears as a major restraining center, the next phase of regional repartition will inevitably draw closer to Türkiye – first to its interests, then to its positions, and in the worst case to its security itself. Turkish officials are still framing this primarily in the language of diplomacy, law, and warning. Yet the strategic meaning of their position is unmistakable. In condemning the strikes on Iran, Ankara is trying not only to stop a war against its neighbor, but to prevent a war against its own future.
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