While all eyes are on Israel, Turkey is building a new regional order

FFollowing the NATO summit, Turkey plans to expand its presence in Syria and Iraq, with the nature and tone of this expansion varying between the two countries.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Turkey could operationalize its ongoing efforts to establish a presence in central Syria in the coming months.

At the same time, Ankara intends to take steps to facilitate the integration process between Damascus and the YPG, as well as to deepen trade and economic integration with Syria through an energy framework.

Building a north-south axis through partnership and not expansion

By analyzing the region comprehensively from the perspectives of stability, partnership and development, Ankara is establishing a new axis of north-south stability through its efforts to create partnerships further south.

As part of this chain of ambitions and actions, Ankara, Baghdad and Erbil are also discussing expanding the Iraq Development Road project beyond a simple land corridor to include an energy and trade transit route, taking into account lessons from the Hormuz crisis.

Ankara should also act soon to bring clarity and coherence to negotiations with the PKK, which it sees as a complementary element of the process and internal peace.

The axis of north-south partnership represented by the railway project, which began in Saudi Arabia and should extend to Turkey, is also continued in Iraq through a modernized development road project.

How the Hormuz crisis transformed the calculus of Ankara’s energy corridor

Despite ongoing debates over the costs of upgrading the development road project to partially integrate an energy transit line, a recent statement by Turkey’s transport and infrastructure minister reveals how Ankara is strategically mapping regional opportunities emerging from the Iran war and the Hormuz crisis.

“This project is not just a highway and a railway; it is a huge corridor also encompassing energy and communication lines. If we had completed this project and the modern Hejaz Railway today, the world would not be talking so much about the Strait of Hormuz. We are currently waiting for the conflict environment in the region to calm down, and then we will proceed,” he said.

Several unused projects are already being discussed as instruments to improve Iraq’s development path. One of them is the strategic Basra-Haditha-Kirkuk pipeline, and the other is the Akkas (Anbar) gas pipeline project to Baghdad. These two dormant roads are among the topics of discussion between Turkey and Iraq.

By connecting Baiji and Daura to these lines, the aim is to make Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq more crisis-resistant and stable, thereby reducing their dependence on European markets.

Although the success of negotiations between Turkey and the PKK will undoubtedly have an impact on these measures, any setbacks could be mitigated through Ankara-Baghdad-Erbil cooperation. Ankara appears to have calculated this matrix and connected its layers appropriately.

Other options, starting in Saudi Arabia and planned to connect Syria and Iraq via Jordan before expanding to Turkey, have already appeared in the investment programs of some private companies.

Energy security, diversified transit routes, partnerships forged in several capitals: Turkey is betting that its dual role as regional peacemaker and energy hub can work for everyone at the table. If this bet is kept, the Middle East that emerges over the next decade could be very different from the one we know today.

.

A view of commercial cargo ships and oil tankers anchored in the Gulf of Oman, off the coast of Muscat, Oman, June 21, 2026. (Photo AA)

Israel remains the obstacle that Ankara cannot get around

But Israel constitutes one of the biggest obstacles on this path.

Israel’s ability to create instability through aggressive and expansionist policies, backed by military action, remains a major concern.

Despite the threat from Israel, which is fueling the war in Iran and creating a global crisis, Ankara wants to expand its north-south strategy in Lebanon, involving regional states as stakeholders in the process. But Israel’s position on the Lebanese front and on the Syrian border has suspended the timetable and the actions planned in Beirut and Tripoli.

In many ways, this resembles a classic developmentalist textbook. But this is precisely what Ankara has promised the region – and, for now, what its neighbors and regional interlocutors have chosen to accept.

In the short to medium term, this could open the door to economic and political transformation and broader alliances in the region.

Unlike Israeli expansionism or the assumptions made in most Western analyses, Turkey’s strategy rests on a different set of pillars: stability, partnership and development.

June 25, 2026 1:50 p.m. GMT+03:00