Turkey watched the US-Israel military campaign against Iran with deep unease. Ankara’s worst-case scenario was never a weakened Iran — it was a collapsed one. State fragmentation in Tehran would have ignited a cascading crisis across Turkey’s southern and eastern neighborhood: proxy conflicts, a renewed refugee wave, and the resurfacing of the Kurdish dimension in ways that would have forced Ankara into impossible choices. Iran’s endurance through the 39-day campaign has, paradoxically, preserved the regional stability Turkey needs to pursue its own expanding ambitions. Now, with the conflict settling into a fragile ceasefire and the regional order visibly shifting, Ankara is positioning itself to capitalize on the disruption it never wanted.
The immediate concern shaping Turkish policy is the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has called explicitly for a return to the pre-war status quo in the strait, warning that Tehran’s new transit regulations — which would give Iran significant leverage over Gulf shipping — risk becoming a permanent source of regional conflict. Turkey’s opposition to Iranian control of the strait is not altruistic. Ankara understands that whatever arrangement replaces the pre-war maritime framework will shape the relative influence of every regional power, including Turkey’s own connectivity projects whose commercial viability depends on unobstructed trade flows.
Defence Industry and the Gulf’s Security Diversification
The war has forced a reckoning across Gulf Cooperation Council capitals about the limits of the American security umbrella. Washington demonstrated both its indispensability and its unreliability simultaneously — launching the campaign that drew Iranian retaliation onto Gulf infrastructure while proving unable to fully shield its hosts from the consequences. That combination has accelerated precisely the hedging behavior that Turkey’s growing defence industry is positioned to supply.
Baykar’s Bayraktar TB3 and Akinci systems demonstrated their capabilities publicly at EFES-2026, and Gulf procurement officials have been watching. The critical difference between Turkey and other potential defence partners is political: Ankara maintains workable relations with Washington and with Trump personally, making Turkish weapons purchases and joint production agreements far less diplomatically costly for Gulf states than equivalent arrangements with American adversaries. The trajectory of Gulf-Turkey defence cooperation is likely to move beyond straightforward arms sales toward joint production agreements, co-investment in manufacturing capacity, and technology transfer arrangements that give Gulf states greater defence industrial autonomy while deepening their ties to Ankara.
Trade Routes and the Connectivity Race
The Hormuz disruption has elevated the question of alternative trade corridors from a long-term planning consideration to an immediate commercial necessity. Turkey already anchors two significant connectivity projects — the Iraq Development Road, which would link the Grand Faw Port in Basra to the Turkish border and onward to European markets, and the Middle Corridor, the trans-Caspian route connecting Central Asia to Europe through the South Caucasus and Anatolia. Both projects acquire significantly enhanced strategic value when the main alternative — Persian Gulf transit through the Strait of Hormuz — becomes unreliable.
The potential addition of Syria to the Iraq Development Road framework would shorten the route to the Mediterranean considerably and reinforce Turkey’s existing military and economic presence in Syrian territory. The Hejaz Railway project — a prospective land corridor connecting the Gulf to Europe via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey — is attracting renewed interest from Gulf investors looking to reduce dependence on maritime routes that Iran can threaten. Each project places Turkey at the geographic and commercial center of an emerging regional trade architecture.
The Quartet and New Regional Alignments
The Turkey-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia-Egypt quartet that has emerged as one of the war’s most consequential diplomatic developments represents something more durable than a mediation format. Ankara has designed it as an open platform rather than a closed pact, deliberately avoiding the kind of rigid membership that generates counter-alignments and accelerates regional polarization. Turkey and Pakistan have each played active mediation roles in the US-Iran ceasefire negotiations. Saudi Arabia provides the economic weight and regional legitimacy that Turkish-led formats have historically lacked. Egypt contributes the institutional credibility of the Arab world’s most populous state.
The commercial dimension of Turkey’s Gulf realignment is also moving quickly. GCC-Turkey free trade negotiations that had stalled for years are now gaining momentum, with Ankara hoping that the political warmth generated by the war’s diplomatic dynamics translates into a concluded agreement within months. Turkey has simultaneously revised its tax framework to attract Gulf capital currently fleeing regional uncertainty. The war has handed Ankara a diplomatic and economic opening that careful maneuvering — not military adventurism — appears well-positioned to consolidate.
Original analysis inspired by Galip Dalay from Chatham House. Additional research and verification conducted through multiple sources.
