Word was that Türkiye was going to host talks between the US and Iran as part of broader regional discussion, but it appears as if Tehran wasn’t on board. That makes sense despite Ankara reportedly being one of the regional countries urging US restraint. Türkiye’s supposed realization?
Egypt has played an impressive role behind the scenes – along with Türkiye, Saudi, Qatar and Oman – to avoid this war. It is not just because they recognize that escalation will be uncontrollable, or that the war will spread instability and refugee flows throughout the region.… https://t.co/YSnf46opBk
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) February 1, 2026
I don’t know. This brings back memories of the Syria situation. It was known that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall would strengthen Israel. In the few years preceding Assad’s eventual downfall Türkiye publicly renounced its efforts at Damascus regime change. Moscow held the hands of Erdogan and Assad in an effort to mend ties after Türkiye’s key role in the dirty war. Meanwhile, Ankara was still conspiring with Washington, Tel Aviv, and head choppers in Syria on next moves.
Now Türkiye was reportedly prepared to establish a “buffer zone” with Iran to prevent the flow of unwanted refugees from Iran in the case of any conflict with Middle East Eye reporting this zone would be on Iranian territory.
Türkiye, of course, did the same in Syria. If we want to stick with the Syria comparison, the recent protests in Iran over financial pain (largely driven by US-led economic warfare) which were hijacked by hostile intelligence agencies share similarities to the early days of the “Arab Spring” in Syria. Initial protests in the latter helped lay the groundwork for succeeding waves and further destabilization campaigns.
There are also many reasons Iran isn’t Syria, but the playbook used by the US, Israel, Türkiye and other states interested in collapsing the government in Tehran looks similar.
For now, Türkiye is eager to get in on talks with Tehran as it pursues a “restructured security architecture” for the region. What does Ankara mean by that?
Following a meeting between Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian back at the end of November, the Turkish side publicly agreed with their Iranian counterparts on a whole range of issues, including the following:
Israel’s regional expansion agenda is “the number one security threat” to the region.
The economic sanctions on Iran are illegal.
Diplomatic solutions under international law should be pursued to settle any disagreements.
But let’s look at what Türkiye is really doing. Back in October, Türkiye followed Washington sanctions on Iran with asset freezes of individuals and entities in Iran.
All the talk of Türkiye and Israel being at odds ignores the cooperation between the two. Türkiye, despite fiery rhetoric, continues to ship Azeri oil and other critical goods to fuel Israel’s carnage. Türkiye and Israel are the two biggest allies of the thorn in Iran’s side, Azerbaijan.
At some point, if the government in Ankara really believed Israel is such a threat, it would stand to reason it would actually do something concrete. For now, it’s just words.
Public opinion in Türkiye, overwhelmingly opposed to Israel’s actions, demands that the government obfuscate such cooperation with heavy rhetoric.
There are future scenarios where Türkiye and Israel could clash, but for now there is strong cooperation between the CIA, Mossad, and Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı.
While Türkiye and Israel have faced off a bit in Syria, what happened there is also illustrative of their cooperation. At the January Paris meeting that threw the Kurds under the bus, the US, Israel, and Türkiye came to an agreement. From The Cradle:
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was present in Paris and played an active role in the negotiations. Its demands were clear: US support for the SDF must end, and the so-called “David Corridor” must be blocked. In exchange, Turkiye would not obstruct Israeli operations in southern Syria.
It was a transactional alignment – and it worked.
It worked—for now. None of the three sides are agreement capable, but as long as they’re all united by a desire to see a change in government in Iran the transactional alignment might hold.
And who knows for how long there will be enough spoils from expansionary ambitions to go around? Private equity real estate investor and Middle East viceroy Tom Barrack seems to believe the answer is a long time:
It’s been a couple years since Erdogan last invoked Misak-i Milli, but let’s not pretend Türkiye abandoned its expansionist ambitions.
True that tension between Erdogan and Netanyahu is pure theater, though. https://t.co/ztSZadkcGE pic.twitter.com/gFrzrNzH4U
— Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) February 1, 2026
The Turks certainly look to be benefitting from the more transactional approach of the Trump administration.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters are now in Iraq rather than Türkiye. The Syrian Kurds are slated to join them. Those are two of Ankara’s biggest goals checked off the list.
And the door to Central Asia through the Caucasus has been thrown open for Türkiye with the Trump Route of International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). As we wrote at the time, despite a whole lot of question marks about the corridor, Ankara stood to be the biggest winner. Here’s Emil Avdaliani, a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia:
The US involvement in the South Caucasus means that Washington will become increasingly dependent on Türkiye to ensure the long-term viability of the corridor through Armenia. The TRIPP not only invites direct American economic and business presence in the South Caucasus but also expands Türkiye’s role in the region. The TRIPP agreement will advance Ankara’s commercial and political interests in the South Caucasus and sideline Iran and to a certain extent Russia. The agreement also opens the way for the restoration of ties between Ankara and Yerevan.
…Russia and Iran have fewer tools to reverse the development of the TRIPP. Neither Tehran nor Moscow can afford any deterioration of ties with Türkiye or Armenia and Azerbaijan at the time when the Islamic Republic and Russia have other pressing geopolitical issues to attend to.
We’ll deal with that last point more in a post next week, but it’s safe to say that both are already applying pressure behind the scenes. While Moscow has been more flexible with TRIPP, Iran has repeatedly made its position clear:
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign minister has made it crystal clear today that Iran will not accept any changes to the Armenian southern border and that it will not tolerate any foreign forces there. pic.twitter.com/6HjlRYHiKB
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) November 6, 2025
And so now we can come back to Türkiye’s talk about a “restructured security architecture.”
Ankara is looking throw Tehran some crumbs on regional connectivity, transport, and logistics in exchange for accepting what will essentially be a NATO corridor along its northern border. As one example, Ankara mentions the resumption of a gas swap arrangement with Iran and Turkmenistan that saw 1.3 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas go from Iran via an existing Iran-Türkiye gas pipeline while Turkmenistan delivered a slightly larger volume of gas via existing pipelines to northwestern Iran. It’s unclear, however, if that deal can come back online without the US and EU relenting on some sanctions, which they might do for a time if it meant Tehran acquiesces to them getting their NATO corridor in place. For obvious reasons, it’s unlikely Iran will agree.
And it appears as if Tehran is no longer interested in these games that see the country become more encircled by hostile actors. That creeping is likely the more serious danger than Trump’s “armada.”
While it has been well-established that it is likely the US-Israel would lose a confrontation with Iran. It is very unlikely missiles hitting the country would do anything to topple the government in Tehran—more likely they would solidify support—and the US and Israel would face devastating losses to bases, naval assets, critical infrastructure, as well as severe economic injury if the Strait of Hormuz is closed —which is perhaps why an attack has not happened yet despite Israel reportedly being desperate for the US to do so.
There also exists the possibility that the “armada” is more of a distraction and bargaining chip. There have been rumblings that Tehran wants US military assets moved away from its borders before talks resume. Only official US military assets?
The real threat, however, lies elsewhere as any hope the US-Israel and other aligned regional nations have in achieving their goals in Iran rest more upon economic warfare and unrest being stirred up by actors on Iran’s borders—Azeris, Kurds, Balochi separatists, ISIS—all supported by Washington-Tel Aviv.
Iraq is likely to play out as the next battlefield as the Zionists attempt to get more hostile actors in place. ISIS is being transferred into Iraq as are Kurds where the US and Israel will no doubt try to encourage them to continue their quixotic quest for a state that includes a chunk of Iran.
Meanwhile, Israel continues its slaughter in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
And Türkiye, linked up with its little brother Azerbaijan, continues to make a Western-backed push into Central Asia. Baku is stepping up its relationship with NATO. Türkiye, aided by TRIPP and western sancrtions, is strengthening its influence in the Central Asia Republics. As Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at Davos:
Touching on transport and logistics, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Azerbaijan was the only safe transit route between Europe and Central Asia that is not exposed to sanctions risks.
Moscow and Tehran appear to have believed they could rely on common sense economic carrots to keep the Caucasus in line, yet events are not cooperating.
It is clear that Persian Gulf despots and Aliyev are cooperating with their Zionist overlords against the Iranian people.
If there is war, these regimes will be fully complicit. Iran and the Axis of Resistance will ensure that they pay the ultimate price.https://t.co/3UnNpIFm9Q
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) February 1, 2026
Regardless of whether the US-Israel start a war, Iran—and Russia—at some point in the not-too-distant future are going to need a more forceful response in the Caucasus or risk it transforming from a headache to a major problem.
