Turkey’s Iran Dilemma

Turkey’s preparation for an Iran crisis is not only military. It is also geopolitical. 

Ankara is now operating on the assumption that a U.S. military strike on Iran is a real possibility. It is moving before anything happens. Turkish officials believe refugee flows begin before bombs fall, not after. 

A retired Turkish ambassador told MBN that Turkey’s overriding fear is not war with Iran itself, but mass displacement. “For Turkey, refugees are no longer a humanitarian issue,” he said. “They are an existential threat.” The lesson of Syria, he added, still shapes Turkish thinking. 

That view is widely shared. Omar Taşpınar, a Turkey expert at the U.S. National Defense University, told MBN’s Houda Elboukili that Ankara is determined to avoid repeating the Syrian experience. “Turkey absorbed nearly four million Syrian refugees over the past decade,” he said. “That became a massive economic and political burden. This is exactly the scenario Turkey wants to prevent if Iran destabilizes.” 

That fear is driving a preemptive strategy. Taşpınar said Turkey is preparing to establish a buffer zone inside Iranian territory if a collapse or large-scale escalation occurs. The goal is not conventional warfare, but what Turkish officials describe as forward containment, stopping population movement at the source and keeping displaced people on the Iranian side of the border. Turkish officials have briefed parliament that another mass breach of the border must be prevented. 

Planning has already moved into infrastructure. The 560-kilometer (348-mile) Turkish-Iranian border has been transformed into a fortified system, including hundreds of kilometers of concrete walls and defensive trenches, electronic watchtowers, and constant drone surveillance. The message is explicit: The open-border approach of the Syrian war will not be repeated. 

Estimates circulating in Ankara suggest a full-scale conflict could push as many as 1 million Iranians toward Turkey. Turkish officials consider that a red line. “The economy cannot absorb it,” the retired ambassador said. “Society will not tolerate it.” 

What complicates the picture is Iran’s large Azerbaijani Turk population, estimated at 20% to 30% of the country’s population. Michael Gunter, a U.S. political scientist, told MBN that the depth of that connection is often underestimated, citing a common Turkish saying: “One nation, two states.” If large numbers of Turkic Iranians reach the border, Turkish leaders would face intense domestic pressure to admit them, pitting military orders against ethnic and moral expectations. 

This is why Turkey has shifted from waiting for a crisis to managing it beyond the border. Wall and buffer-zone planning is not only about security measures. They reflect Turkey’s view that controlling population movement is now central to internal stability, even if that stretches Iranian sovereignty and traditional diplomacy. 

Turkey’s response, however, does not stop at its borders. In parallel, Ankara is anchoring itself in a new regional alignment designed to manage instability if Iran weakens. 

A former Turkish ambassador told MBN that Turkey is quietly building a security axis with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan, one focused on containment rather than confrontation. “This is not about ideology,” he said. “It’s about preventing collapse from spreading.” 

At the center of this effort is an emerging collective-defense framework built on the Saudi-Pakistani Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement signed last year. Turkey, the former ambassador said, is in advanced talks to join. Egypt is increasingly aligned in practice, even if not formally integrated. “The logic is simple,” he said. “If the region fragments, no one wants to face the consequences alone.” 

Coordination among these states has intensified as the Iran crisis has sharpened. Turkey has expanded security dialogue with Saudi Arabia on Iran, Syria, and Iraq, worked closely with Qatar and Oman to block U.S. strikes through diplomacy, and aligned more closely with Egypt on Libya, Sudan, and Lebanon. “There is a shared concern,” the former ambassador said, “that war would destabilize an already fragile regional order.” 

Notably absent from this alignment is the United Arab Emirates. Turkish officials increasingly view Abu Dhabi as more tolerant of escalation. “The UAE has a higher risk threshold,” the former ambassador said. “Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are operating from the opposite assumption, that chaos is the real enemy.” 

The shift reflects a broader recalibration in Turkish strategy. Where earlier regional blocs were shaped by ideological rivalry, this one is defined by risk management: preserving state structures, avoiding regime collapse, and containing spillover. Turkish officials increasingly point to Syria’s recent managed transition as a model, rather than Iraq or Libya. 

For Ankara, the hedge serves multiple purposes. It reduces isolation if Iran weakens, secures Gulf backing amid economic strain, and positions Turkey as a central broker in post-crisis reconstruction corridors linking Iraq and Syria. “Turkey wants to be in the room where the region is stabilized,” the former ambassador said, “not outside dealing with the consequences.” 

In essence, Turkey’s Iran policy is shaped by the trauma of the Syrian refugee crisis. Ankara is betting that mediation can prevent war. If it fails, Turkey is preparing to seal its borders, act beyond them, and rely on a regional coalition built for containment.