Few nations in the Middle East have more to lose from a broader US-Iran war than Turkey.

The drumbeat of possible US military strikes against Iran is growing louder as indirect diplomacy continues amid high-stakes speculation about its imminent failure. Washington has signalled it is prepared to escalate if talks collapse; Tehran is warning it will retaliate against US forces in the region if attacked—and will not limit itself to tit-for-tat strikes. This is the kind of escalatory symmetry that turns a crisis into a cascade. The inconclusive talks in Geneva on Tuesday underscored the problem: neither side appears ready to concede enough to lock in a durable off-ramp.

In that narrowing space, Turkey’s room for maneuver is limited—but it is wrong to assume that Ankara has been passive. Over recent weeks, it has tried to keep a diplomatic track alive, quietly testing what might be politically saleable to both sides. As Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has argued in recent weeks, widening demands too quickly risks producing “nothing” and pushing the region towards conflict.

In the background, Ankara’s engagement with Washington has intensified during President Trump’s second term, alongside renewed Turkish efforts to position itself as a pragmatic mediator across multiple files. But in the looming war scenario with Iran, Turkey may have reached the limits of what middle-power diplomacy can achieve. The escalatory lever ultimately sits in Washington, while regional actors—including Israel—shape the political and operational calculus in ways Ankara cannot fully control.

Turkey has made its position clear: it does not want a regional war. If a military campaign begins, however, it will be forced into the role it knows best. This means managing fallout: securing the border with Iran, containing secondary shocks across Iraq and the Gulf-Red Sea corridor, and pushing for rapid, disciplined de-escalation before escalation becomes self-sustaining.

Why Turkey Fears a US-Iran Conflict

Turkey has a role within the Middle East that is often misunderstood. A NATO ally with proven operational relevance to US and European security, Ankara also has a long history of calibrated competition with Iran. The Turkey-Iran relationship has long been defined by managed rivalry and selective cooperation across overlapping theatres, in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Red Sea arena, and the Caucasus. It is messy, transactional and often tense. Even so, it has produced working channels. In a moment when multiple actors are communicating through intermediaries, those channels matter. Critics sometimes miscast this as ‘Turkey equals Iran,’ but this is a misunderstanding: Turkey’s value lies in its capacity to engage Iran’s principal power centres and to speak to Washington without grandstanding.

Turkey has immediate, material interests in preventing a US-Iran war. Any clash that threatens the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb would send shockwaves through energy markets and shipping lanes; it would reverberate across GCC states, Jordan and Iraq; it would activate networks of armed groups that thrive in ambiguity; and it could trigger secondary crises, like localised separatist insurgencies inside Iran, and domestic polarisation across the region. Unlike distant stakeholders, Turkey cannot treat escalation as an abstract “risk scenario.” It sits right next to where the fighting would take place.

Ankara has a further, unspoken driver for wishing to avoid conflict: refugee flows. Turkey already carries the political and economic weight of hosting millions of displaced people from earlier regional wars in neighboring Iraq and Syria. If strikes on Iran were followed not merely by external retaliation but by internal conflict—elite fragmentation, intensified repression, localised insurgencies, or state paralysis—Turkish planners fear a fast-moving refugee spillover across its eastern border with Iran. Turkish reporting in recent weeks points to contingency thinking in Ankara shaped by precisely this risk: a scenario in which instability inside Iran becomes a mass-migration event, not a contained security crisis.

Turkey Is Trying to Defuse Regional Tensions

Yet Ankara’s reach and influence is not limitless. What can Turkey actually do–especially now, when Geneva has reinforced the sense of stalemate?

First, the least visible Turkish contribution is the one that matters most: disciplined backchannel communication. This has been Ankara’s comparative advantage for weeks, even if it is easy to miss because it is designed to be quiet. Turkey can pass messages between Washington and Tehran without theater: what the US might do if talks collapse; what Iran might do in response; which moves would be read as escalatory rather than defensive; and where third-party actions—particularly spoilers—could accelerate escalation dynamics. In a crisis that is increasingly shaped by misperception and signalling, reducing the risk of misunderstanding or “worst-case reading” is a material stabilising act.

Second, Turkey can help make sequencing politically feasible, even if it cannot dictate outcomes. The central dilemma in US-Iran diplomacy is that the parties want different things at different speeds. Tehran insists talks remain confined to the nuclear file, while President Donald Trump has insisted on a grand bargain touching missiles and regional networks. The end state of these discussions remains unclear. For its part, Turkey’s preference is for an interim, time-bound package that lowers the temperature first: nuclear restraint and verifiable steps paired with narrowly tailored relief, while parallel channels explore the harder regional questions. That approach complements Omani facilitation rather than competing with it, giving Washington and Tehran more than one pathway back from the brink.

Third, Turkey can help build regional guardrails around the flashpoints most likely to ignite. If strikes occur, escalation will not play out neatly between capitals; it will likely spill through the Gulf, Iraq, and the Red Sea arena, while bringing Israel into the fray too. Turkey cannot “control” these theatres, but it can help convene practical restraint mechanisms—understandings about what not to hit, what lines not to cross, and how to communicate when strikes and counter-strikes begin to blur into broader campaigns. The point is not a grand regional peace architecture, but crisis management: the difference between a contained exchange and a rolling regional confrontation.

Turkey’s Peace Maneuvering Is Burning Political Capital

None of this is cost-free for Ankara. Its credibility with Washington can be fragile, and any Turkish role is and will be scrutinised by the US and by Israel. Tehran, meanwhile, is suspicious of NATO geography and will test whether Turkey is truly acting as a stabiliser or merely buying time for coercion.

This task is complicated by a harsher regional rhetoric environment. In some files, especially in Syria, Turkey risks being perceived as overreaching, including by Israeli actors who view Ankara through a lens of “encirclement.” Whether or not that interpretation is accurate. Ankara, in turn, is watching an escalation in Israeli political rhetoric that increasingly casts Turkey as the “next threat” after Iran. That framing is combustible. In a crisis already vulnerable to misperception, hostile signalling narrows diplomatic space and makes restraint harder to sell domestically on all sides.

That is why Turkey’s best approach is pragmatic and modest. The objective is not to “solve” the US-Iran confrontation. It is to keep the crisis under control long enough for diplomacy—however imperfect, conditional and partial—to do its work. Turkey cannot rewrite the calculus driving Washington and Tehran. But it can help ensure that, if diplomacy fails, it does not fail catastrophically—and that a regional confrontation does not tip into the kind of internal Iranian rupture that would send shockwaves, and people, across borders.

About the Author: Burcu Ozcelik

Burcu Ozcelik is a senior research fellow in Middle East Security at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. Prior to joining RUSI, Burcu worked as an Associate Director at a London-based consultancy firm, leading the MENA practice. She previously worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). She holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge. Follow her on X: @burcuozcelik.

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