Turkish Influence in the Middle East in 2025

President Tayyip Erdogan has long tried to position Turkey as a regional power. Looking at the dramatic chain of events the Middle East has seen since October 2023, where has Turkey gained and lost influence, and how has its foreign policy changed?

Turkish policy toward Israel

Turkey continues to loudly oppose Israel, criticizing the Jewish state’s conduct in the Gaza war, declining to refer to Hamas as a terror group, etc. Erdogan wants to be seen as a moral leader for Muslims around the world who support the Palestinian cause. Despite domestic support for his anti-Israel stance, Erdogan has not achieved the pan-Muslim leadership role he seeks.

Notably, at various points in the last two years Turkey has suggested itself as a destination for Hamas’s leadership, in the event Qatar opts to expel the group. This relocation remains unlikely for several reasons: 

• Hamas leadership would be significantly more vulnerable to Israeli assassination attempts in Turkey. Qatar is a small, highly secure state, where any high-profile acts of violence would be considered norm-breaking. Moreover, Qatar’s status as a US-chosen mediator means that an assassination on Qatari soil would risk a major diplomatic crisis. 
• Turkey is a large, sprawling country, with comparatively low levels of state surveillance, where both random and targeted acts of violence are relatively common. Israel could very likely kill Hamas leaders in Turkey without leaving an obvious trail.
• Separate from assassination risk, on a diplomatic level the US places far more trust in Qatar as a mediator than it would in Erdogan. Qatar prioritizes enhancing its relationship with the US as a core component of its foreign policy. Erdogan, on the other hand, sometimes supports US interests but just as often works against them, in a constant pursuit of maximum regional and global influence, with or without the US as a key long-term partner. 

As far as actual policy is concerned, Turkey has cut off diplomatic ties and trade with Israel. Beyond rhetoric, Turkey exercises limited influence in Israeli-Palestinian affairs due to minimal strategic stakes in the conflict. 

• Unlike Jordan and Lebanon, it does not host a large number of Palestinian refugees. 
• Unlike Egypt, it does not share a border with Israel and Gaza.
• Unlike Qatar, it does not host Hamas. 
• Unlike Saudi Arabia, it does not have religious authority it can use to influence Palestinian Muslims.
• Unlike the UAE, it does not have a strong economy and massive state wealth to deploy to rebuild Gaza (nor nearly as strong a partnership with the US).
• Unlike all of these countries, Turkey does not have an Arab identity nor is it Arabic speaking.

However, just in the last two weeks, Turkey has been mentioned as another mediator, alongside Egypt and Qatar, pushing Hamas for concessions to facilitate a ceasefire in Gaza. It still seems unlikely that Turkey would get credit if a ceasefire were achieved; nevertheless, reports suggest Turkey is again jockeying for a role in the talks, hoping to be globally perceived as an influential actor in defusing the conflict.

Turkey’s position on US/Israel-Iran confrontation

Despite positioning itself as a potential mediator, Turkey did not end up playing a key role in the US/Israel-Iran confrontation. Instead the US continues to work through Oman, Qatar (who received primary credit for mediating the ceasefire), the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. 

From the US perspective, all of these states are seen as close enough to Iran to mediate a crisis, but – other than truly neutral Oman – somewhat more invested in their ties to the US. While Trump and Erdogan occasionally appear to have a sort of “aspiring strong man” rapport, the US foreign policy establishment generally views Erdogan as pursuing ulterior motives in regional scenarios.

Part two coming soon