Will Turkey get involved? DW 04/10/2024

For months, many countries have been warning of an escalation of the war in the Middle East. These concerns are now amplified following the latest Iranian attack on Israel.

Iran is one of the regional powers in the Middle East. Another is Turkey, and Ankara has stood by the Palestinian people since the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip in response to the October 7, 2023 attack carried out by the terrorist organization Hamas. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “genocide”. He has also repeatedly emphasized that he does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization and often speaks of his “Palestinian brothers.”

“Instrumenting foreign policy to achieve domestic policy objectives”

Erdogan recently stoked fears among his own population: in a speech to the Turkish parliament on October 1, 2024, he accused Israel of also wanting to attack Turkey. “The Israeli government, gone mad in the Holy Land, will perhaps target our homeland with its religious fanaticism after Palestine and Lebanon,” he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dreams of occupying Anatolia and is “pursuing a utopia,” Erdogan added.

But experts consider Erdogan's statements to be unrealistic. “I think this scenario is impossible,” said Selin Nasi, a political scientist at the London School of Economics (LSE). “Turkey is a member of NATO. Attacking Turkey would mean confronting NATO and the United States. Moreover, there is no reason for Israel to attack Turkey.”

Erdogan is trying to consolidate his base and show solidarity with the Palestinians, he added. Turkey has the second largest army in NATO, making it not only a military force, but also a close ally of the United States, just like Israel.

Erdogan's statements are about something else, said Ilter Turan, professor emeritus of international relations and former rector of Istanbul's Bilgi University. “The president is instrumentalizing foreign policy for his domestic policy goals. Israel certainly has no such intention,” he said.

Ankara is trying to focus attention on other issues in the face of major domestic policy failures, he said. Turkey is going through an economic crisis and Erdogan is losing his political support since the last local elections.

Would Turkey dare to intervene?

According to Turan, there is no probability that Turkey will become a party to the war. “Turkey will not actively participate in the conflict, because Ankara does not want to be part of the war,” he stressed. Ankara would not approve of possible Israeli retaliation against Iran, as Turkey maintains a distant friendship with Iran. Although the government could possibly offer spiritual support to Tehran, it would not go beyond that, Turan said.

“The Turkish government's pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli stance has given the false impression that it supports Iran and its militias. This is misleading, explained Selin Nasi of the LSE. Turkey is focused on strengthening its economy and a regional conflict would only result in It is therefore not expected that it will intervene in Gaza or Lebanon “Turkey will not want to confront Israel militarily,” Nasi said.

Competitors with mutual respect

Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia “continue to compete with each other, as they have done in the past,” said Mithat Rende, a former Turkish ambassador to Qatar familiar with the region's geopolitical dynamics. Turkey maintains its relations with Iran “with care and respect”, even though Tehran and Ankara often differ when it comes to different regional conflicts, he said.

“Turkey does not want Iran to expand its dominance in the region through non-state actors that it supports and arms. At the same time, Turkey shares with other regional powers the goal of preventing “Iran to become a nuclear power,” Rende said. .

How does Turkey view Hezbollah?

A fundamental difference of opinion between the two regional powers lies in their different interpretations of Islam: Turkey is predominantly Sunni and Erdogan's government mainly supports Sunni organizations such as Hamas, listed as a terrorist organization by the EU and the United States. In contrast, Iran's population is predominantly Shia, leading to close ties between the Iranian regime and Shia groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

These religious and political differences consequently shape the geopolitical alliances between the two countries.

These differences are also reflected in Ankara's recent expressions of condolence: when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed, Erdogan declared state mourning in his honor. But after the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, he expressed solidarity with the Lebanese people, but did not mention Nasrallah's name. “It is understandable and unsurprising that no comparable sympathy was shown,” Turan said.

This article was originally published in German.