Turkey Turns Regional Disorder Into Leverage

Turkey used the week's regional disorder to make itself indispensable in three different arenas, but each new role carries an obligation Ankara may not be able to contain. President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an joined Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a trilateral defence agreement that treats an armed attack on one as an attack on all. The three countries bring obvious complementary assets: Saudi capital and influence, Pakistani military experience, and Turkish drones, missiles and industrial capacity. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insists the pact is not aimed at Iran or any other country. That description is formally credible and strategically incomplete; the agreement was accelerated by Iranian attacks, Houthi pressure and falling confidence in US protection.

The difficult question is what mutual defence means in practice. Pakistan maintained relations with Tehran even after its 2025 pact with Riyadh, Turkey remains a NATO member with its own treaty obligations, and Saudi Arabia wants reassurance without surrendering freedom of action. An Al Jazeera Centre for Studies assessment notes that the three states still diverge sharply on Iran. The pact will matter first through arms production, exercises, intelligence and air-defence deployment, not an automatic march to war. If it becomes an institution, it could shift regional procurement away from Western suppliers. If the members avoid defining triggers, it will be a political signal that adversaries test rather than a shield they respect.

The Black Sea offered an immediate test of Turkish authority. Drones attacked the Turkish-owned Yasar and Nadezhda after they left Novorossiysk, injuring crew members. Ankara then restricted commercial traffic through the Turkish Straits toward Russian and Ukrainian ports and called for a mutual moratorium on attacks against merchant shipping. Carnegie's analysis of the Montreux Convention explains Turkey's advantage: control of the straits lets it limit naval reinforcement while remaining the one actor both Russia and Ukraine need for trade and security arrangements. That leverage weakens if civilian ships become routine targets. It also gives Ankara a reason to resist escalation by either side, even when doing so frustrates Kyiv's supporters.

Domestic politics moved in the opposite direction, toward fragmentation. ?zg?r ?zel's New Party claimed hundreds of thousands of resignations from the CHP after a court restored Kemal K?l??daro?lu to the party leadership. CHP officials disputed the scale and said most departures involved members who had joined during ?zel's tenure. The parliamentary facts are clearer: ?zel took 91 lawmakers into the new formation after his 2024 local-election strategy had delivered the opposition's strongest performance against Erdo?an's AKP in more than two decades. The split frees ?zel from a court-imposed leadership but divides the organisation, local networks and brand that produced those victories.

Parliament is also opening debate on a temporary legal framework for thousands of PKK members. The bill would create a conditional amnesty mechanism and monitoring committees after a symbolic disarmament and movement of fighters from Turkey into northern Iraq. Hamish Kinnear of Verisk Maplecroft argues that the ceasefire has already helped revive Iraq-Turkey oil and trade links and eased Kurdish integration questions in Syria. Ankara Mayor Mansur Yava? is right about one risk: a law cannot produce durable peace if voters see courts and municipal operations being used against political rivals. Yet dismissing the bill as election engineering would miss the economic and regional gains already attached to reduced violence.

Turkey's next month will show whether these bargains reinforce one another. Safer Black Sea shipping would support its mediator role; a defined defence pact could expand its industry; and a credible Kurdish settlement could improve trade with Iraq and stability in Syria. Failure travels just as easily across the links. An undefined alliance can import partners' wars, a shipping restriction can become a blockade, and a peace law without political trust can return the conflict to the ballot box and the street.