By Henry Srebrnik, Saint John Telegraph Journal
When Israel struck Iran in June, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan must have quietly welcomed the attacks against its regional rival in Tehran. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry also issued a rather muted response to the American bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Ankara simply expressed “deep concern” over the strikes while noting that it “stands ready to fulfill its responsibilities and contribute positively.”
Turkey seems fine with Iran’s nuclear wings being clipped. If Tehran had gained that edge, it would effectively end the power parity with its non-nuclear rival. Turkey has benefitted from Israel’s ongoing degradation of Iranian influence throughout the region. It sees Iran’s misfortunes as opportunities.
This is most visible in Syria, where Iran and Turkey fought a long proxy conflict in Syria, with Tehran supporting the Assad regime and Ankara backing the rebels. Now, Erdogan has become a major backer of the new Ahmed al-Shara’a government, intending to use Syria to project Turkish power throughout the Middle East.
Ankara has begun to solidify its economic grip on Syria, securing major infrastructure construction projects. It also seeks to complement its existing military presence inside Syria by training and equipping the new Syrian military and has emphatically declared that it has no intentions of leaving Syria anytime soon.
This has irked Israeli policymakers, with some concluding that a rising Turkey had become their new regional competitor. Yet policymakers in Ankara increasingly feel the same about the military might that Israel has flexed since October 2023, from destroying Hamas and Hezbollah’s leadership and infrastructure to decapitating Iran’s senior military ranks and completely dominating the country’s airspace.
Turkey was the first Muslim-majority state to recognize Israel, granting it diplomatic recognition in 1949. Turkey’s Kemalist-era secularism and Israel’s policy of cultivating regional partners beyond its immediate circle of neighbors both played a role in this dynamic.
Yet their relations have taken a nosedive in the Erdogan era. In 2006, Erdogan stoked tensions by hosting a delegation from Hamas. Ties collapsed completely during the 2010 Free Gaza flotilla incident, when Israeli forces boarded a Turkish ship attempting to bypass their blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, killing eight Turkish citizens and one U.S.-Turkish dual national.
Despite long opposing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, Ankara has a strong national security interest in avoiding moves that result in either direct Turkish hostilities with Iran or the collapse of the Islamic Republic. Therefore Turkey is highly unlikely to support further U.S. military action against Iran. It will likely support diplomatic and non-military steps, including further sanctions, dialogue, and economic pressure, to prevent Iran from reestablishing a nuclear weapons capability, while opposing steps that could greatly erode Iran’s authority or topple the regime entirely.
Turkey already hosts nearly four million refugees, mostly from Syria and other unstable countries, so it understands military escalation with Iran could generate more refugee flows. Erdogan is grateful to U.S. President Donald Trump for suspending sanctions against Syria, which could help stabilize Turkey’s long border with its southern neighbour.
Turkey’s military strategists are aware that they share a key Iranian vulnerability highlighted by Israel’s precision strikes against Tehran. It too lacks air defence capability. Turkey’s need to renew its fleet of fighter jets is not new, but it has become more pressing due to acquisitions by other regional states and the outcomes of Israel’s war with Iran.
At present, Turkey’s air defence capabilities consist mainly of a fleet of F-16’s and an inactive S-400 surface to air missile defence system purchased from Russia in 2019. It was Turkey’s acquisition of this Russian weapon that resulted in Turkey’s removal from the American F-35 program, and sanctions by Washington under provisions of the Countering of America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act. Washington feared that Turkey’s simultaneous operation of the American aircraft and the Russian system would enable sensitive information about the F-35 to be collected and transferred to Russia.
Turkey’s current fighter jets entered service decades ago, and despite upgrades, the aging of these aircraft has become a pressing problem that now requires attention. Israel already operates the F-35, and several other countries have acquired fighter jets more advanced than the F-16.
In early August, the Turkish National Intelligence Academy published a report outlining lessons for Turkey from the conflict between Israel and Iran. The first lesson was the need to continue modernizing Turkey’s aerial platforms. Israel’s air superiority and its role in achieving a decisive victory against Iran, combined with Ankara’s perception that it is competing with Israel for regional influence, underscored the critical importance of Turkey’s air fleet, especially given the Israeli Air Force’s advanced capabilities due to the F-35.
Israel’s opposition to the sale of F-35s to Turkey has become more prominent in closed discussions, largely due to fears of a potential direct confrontation. Turkey will doubtless also face opposition from Greek, Armenian, and Kurdish lobbies. Nationalist voices in Turkey emphasize the need to avoid purchasing foreign fighter jets, warning that such acquisitions divert resources that delay the need to liberate the country from reliance on foreign nations.
Turkey is already working on an indigenous air defence system, the Steel Dome, a network-based shield designed to defend from a wide-range of aerial threats. It has already completed the test of its SIPER long-range missile defence system, a critical component of the proposed shield.
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