IRAN-TÜRKİYE RELATIONS IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
The two-year period of 2025 and 2026 has been recorded as a decisive juncture in the history of Middle Eastern diplomacy, during which the regional order was redefined under the influence of surgical military interventions and the return of maximum pressure doctrines. In this context, relations between Iran and Turkey have shifted from a traditional managed rivalry towards a form of “threshold management”; where Ankara views Tehran’s stability not as a diplomatic choice, but as a pillar of its own national security. The developments of this period, especially after the large-scale military attack by the United States and Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025, dubbed “Operation Rising Lion,” altered the balance of power unprecedentedly in favor of Turkey. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria in late 2024 and early 2025 also dealt a structural blow to the “Axis of Resistance,” severely reducing Iran’s regional influence, while consolidating Turkey as the new hegemonic actor in the Levant and northern Iraq.
