Turkey Navigates an Escalating Israel–Iran Rivalry

The post–7 October realignment in the Middle East has recalibrated threat perceptions and strategic opportunities for both Turkey and Israel. The recent ‘12-Day War’ has further accelerated this shift. While both Turkey and Israel seek to maximise influence in this fluid landscape, key indicators suggest that viewing Turkey–Israel dynamics through a zero-sum lens risks fuelling strategic miscalculations and regional instability. This could intensify competition across overlapping spheres of influence – from Syria and Iraq to the Eastern Mediterranean and the South Caucasus.

The characterisation of Turkey as the principal beneficiary of the recent Iran-Israel conflict – emerging unscathed while its two regional rivals engaged in direct confrontation – oversimplifies the pressures facing Ankara’s foreign and security policy. While Turkey has publicly escalated its rhetoric against Israel, this masks the complexity of its concurrent rivalry with Iran. Managing these relationships requires a hybrid approach that blends assertive public diplomacy, strategic trade considerations, and a robust counter-intelligence posture. Ankara’s response reflects less an opportunistic gain than a strategic balancing act that weighs long-term, interrelated perceptions of threat with regional aspirations. Once close allies now appear to be on a collision course – but it is crucial to discern what is real, what is calibrated for domestic audiences, and how much of the current tension may ultimately prove impermanent.

The Current State of Bilateral Relations

Despite efforts to rehabilitate ties between Turkey and Israel following President Isaac Herzog’s historic state visit to Ankara in March 2022, relations nosedived as Israel’s military action in Gaza intensified following the horrific Hamas attacks on 7th October 2023, triggering a rising civilian death toll rose and a humanitarian catastrophe there.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been one of the harshest critics of the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On 2 May 2024, Turkey announced full export and import restriction against Israel, citing Israeli refusal to allow Turkey to airdrop humanitarian aid. This came after an earlier export restriction imposed in April against Israel targeting 54 product groups, such as steel and cement.

Countering allegations that Azeri-sourced oil has continued to reach Israel via the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the Turkish energy ministry has consistently denied that any oil tankers bound for Israel have left Ceyhan since the restrictions came into force last May. The Turkish Ministry of Trade also formally rejected claims that trade has continued in an official statement, describing allegations as ‘completely false'. For Israel, the narrative that Turkey–Israel relations persist covertly signals its imperviousness to Ankara’s declared trade embargo. Where engagement has been acknowledged by Turkish sources, it relates to technical talks held in Azerbaijan between the two sides to develop a deconfliction mechanism in Syria, after Israeli airstrikes there in March targeted three Syrian air bases that Turkish military officials were reportedly inspecting for possible use. This suggests that while political relations remain severely strained, channels of pragmatic interaction – particularly where third-party actors such as Azerbaijan or the United States have vested interests – endure. But the near-term rehabilitation of ties between Turkey and Israel remains highly unlikely.

On 13 June, Ankara condemned Israel for its aggression against Iran, calling it a blatant violation of international law, but did not escalate rhetoric further – likely to retain some diplomatic flexibility and avoid a direct challenge to the US. Domestically, Israeli military unilateralism is already emboldening Turkey’s own assertive defence posture, fuelling efforts to strengthen its indigenous military capabilities.

While Israel and Turkey diverge sharply in their visions for the region’s future security architecture, they share some objectives: limit the possibility of Iranian re-entrenchment in the region, particularly across Syria; and the refusal to tolerate hostile actors on their borders.

The Regional Alliance-Building Race

For Israel and Iran, the current pause seems to be an opportunity to reframe their post-war narratives and shore up regional allies as a form of strategic deterrence. Turkey could play a role in this equation as either a spoiler or sponsor as each side lobbies regional actors in a bid to counter the fallout of their diplomatic isolation. Ankara could leverage its diplomatic influence to challenge Israel’s efforts to re-engage with Arab states – particularly in light of recent signals suggesting Israeli overtures toward Syria and Lebanon under a broader Abraham Alliance framework. Given the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, however, and the firm stance of Saudi Arabia that normalisation with Israel cannot proceed without an irreversible step toward Palestinian statehood, Israel’s normalisation drive seems unlikely.

To counter escalatory rhetoric by some in Israel, Ankara is likely to underscore its strategic value to the US and European allies – as a NATO member, G20 economy, and (albeit stalled) EU candidate – by positioning itself as a regional actor capable of avoiding direct military entanglement while fostering space for diplomatic de-escalation.

Yet, Turkey’s opposition to Israeli military actions should not be misconstrued as alignment with or tacit endorsement of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Turkey’s relationship with Iran is complex. Both states perceive themselves as regional superpowers yet have avoided direct military confrontation since the signing of the 1639 Ottoman-Safavid accord.

On 4 July 2025 President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the recent Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) summit held in Khankendi, Azerbaijan. In his first overseas trip since the conflict, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was also there, and photographed with Erdogan and Azerbaijan President Ilhan Aliyev. The telegraphed messaging was clear – a common front at the expense of Israel. Yet while Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey share a complex set of interests, they are not a united alliance. Azerbaijan is seen as a brotherly Turkic state by Ankara, but also received Israeli weaponry during the 2020 war with Armenia and in 2023 when Baku wrestled control over the disputed Karabagh region. In recent months, speculation has been rising that Azerbaijan may join the US-brokered Abraham Accords alliance. Such complexity is testament to blurred lines, overlapping trade interests, and transactional diplomacy, a not so hidden receding of previous ‘us or them’ binaries.

The Kurdish Question in Turkey-Israel Ties

If tensions between Turkey and Israel escalate to military standoff, it will most likely spark in Syria. Ankara is unwilling to cede its influence there – whether to Iranian interference via potential sleeper cell networks or to Israeli military entrenchment. Israel sees diminished American troop presence in Syria as a win for Turkey, and a setback for Israel.

Israel’s support for the Kurds, a group seen as less hostile to Israel, has amplified since the overthrow of the Iran-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called the Kurds a ‘natural ally’ adding: ‘Understand that in a region where we will always be a minority –natural alliances will be with other minorities.’

A map of the so-called ‘Abraham Shield Plan’, developed by an Israeli non-governmental platform, marks the territory of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq as an ‘Abraham Coalition Partner’, a network that also includes Egypt, Jordan and the signatories of the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Ankara is undoubtedly vigilant to possible attempts by Israel to promote Kurdish separatist aspirations in Iraq and Syria and seeks to prevent Kurdish factions from being exploited as a proxy or leverage against Turkey by either Israel or Iran. Turkey is currently pursuing the disarmament of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which will have ripple effects across Turkey’s borders in Iraq, Syria and Iran. Following Israel’s Operation ‘Rising Lion’, one speculative scenario has questioned whether sub-national ethnic insurgencies may seize on perceived regime weakness in Tehran to advance separatist goals, such as the Kurds, Azeris, or Baloch groups. This is a low-probability risk in the short term. But Turkish security planners are likely alert to the risk that PJAK, the offshoot of the PKK operating in Iran, may seek to mobilise, even in the context of the PKK’s declared intent to disarm. Should Iran seek to disrupt the PKK process in order to keep Turkey preoccupied with Kurdish militancy, it risks alienating Ankara at a moment when Tehran can ill afford further tensions.

The Next War?

Few in the region believe the Israel–Iran conflict has reached a definitive end. History offers a cautionary parallel: the Six-Day War of 1967 was followed just six years later by the Yom Kippur War. A return to nuclear diplomacy under US pressure alongside an urgently needed political resolution for Gaza and the West Bank may reshape the current state of suspended hostility. Yet the fact that both Israel and Iran have crossed once-inviolable red lines by engaging in direct kinetic strikes suggests the threshold for future escalation has been permanently lowered. Another round of conflict remains a distinct possibility.

In the near term, direct military confrontation between Turkey and Israel is a high severity/low probability scenario. The strategic consequences of targeting Turkey – a NATO member – would differ significantly from Israel’s campaign against Iran. Both sides are well aware of the operational complexities and potential fallout associated with military or intelligence actions, particularly given the heightened risk of miscalculation. Security planners on both sides are likely to remain cautious, recognising that any decision to escalate or undermine existing deconfliction mechanisms would carry considerable political and operational costs. Rather than direct confrontation, a more imminent risk relates to a sub-threshold conflict or ‘grey zone’ activity between Turkey and Israel.

While the prospect of formal normalisation between Israel and either Lebanon or Syria remains highly improbable, the establishment of a functional non-aggression mechanism – particularly from the perspective of Damascus – could be transformative. For war-weary Syrians, avoiding Turkish-Israeli confrontation on their territory would represent a meaningful step toward stability and disrupt escalatory violence cycles. Short of normalisation, a type of interim ‘convenient understanding’, as one Israeli security analyst described it, between Syria and Isreal may be a first step. This would likely ease the intensity of rhetoric between Israel and Turkey on both sides. In the long term, the aftermath of operations against Iran could reshape both bilateral and multilateral alliances across the Middle East. Although the U.S. appears to be reasserting its unipolar influence—whether deliberately or not—lasting regional stability will depend on the active buy-in of local actors. This will inevitably call for a recalibration of the strategic triangle between Turkey, Israel, and Iran.

© RUSI, 2025.

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