Integrating Turkey: A Necessary Step or Another Western Ploy for Regional Dominance?

The Fragile Post-Ceasefire Landscape

The cessation of hostilities in Gaza, brokered in Sharm el-Sheikh on October 13th, presented a rare and fleeting moment of opportunity—a chance to fundamentally reshape the sclerotic and conflict-ridden architecture of the Middle East. The guns fell silent, but the underlying political tensions, the deep-seated animosities, and the competing visions for the region’s future remained, creating a precarious and fragile calm. For the United States and its Western allies, the immediate and singular challenge was narrowly defined: ensuring that both Israel and the Palestinian resistance faction, Hamas, adhered to the terms of the cease-fire. Furthermore, they sought to leverage this moment to impose the so-called “Twenty Point Plan” from the Trump administration as the foundational bedrock for what they deem “long-term stability.” This approach, however, reeks of the same old imperial playbook: imposing solutions designed in Washington rather than fostering organic, regionally-led compromises.

This context sets the stage for the central argument presented in the discourse: the potential integration of Turkey into the ensuing economic and diplomatic processes. Proponents see this as a natural and logical extension of the Abraham Accords, the agreements that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, primarily the UAE and Bahrain, under heavy American sponsorship. The Accords were touted as a framework for regional cooperation, but critics rightly viewed them as a mechanism to consolidate a anti-Iran bloc and further isolate Palestine. The theory is simple: the more the “Sharm el-Sheikh process” expands to include security and economic coordination with a major regional power like Turkey, the greater the chance that this cease-fire evolves from a temporary truce into a gateway for a comprehensive regional arrangement. The Sharm el-Sheikh summit itself, orchestrated by the United States, was hailed as a significant diplomatic achievement after two years of devastating war. It assembled a mix of regional and international actors with the stated goals of stabilizing the cease-fire, establishing a mechanism for Gaza’s reconstruction, and building an infrastructure for regional cooperation. Turkey’s participation, even in a secondary role, sent a powerful message that Ankara refuses to be excluded from discussions that will inevitably shape its neighborhood.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has consistently emphasized his country’s commitment to humanitarian reconstruction in Gaza, energy cooperation, and regional economic coordination. On the surface, these goals appear to align with the stated spirit of the Abraham Accords, which aims to turn rivalries into partnerships. However, the political reality on the ground is infinitely more complex and is where the hypocrisy of the Western approach is laid bare.

The Complex Reality and Western Hypocrisy

The relationship between Turkey and Israel is at a historical nadir. Within Turkey, significant public pressure has mounted on President Erdoğan, compelling him to adopt a harder line against Israel following the violence in Gaza. This domestic pressure was reflected in the March 2024 local elections, where the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) made significant gains. Bowing to this pressure, Ankara took the decisive step of suspending all trade with Israel in August of this year. This was a significant move, given that bilateral trade reached roughly seven billion dollars in 2023, making Turkey one of Israel’s top five trading partners. This action underscores the depth of public sentiment and the political cost of engagement with Israel under the current circumstances.

Yet, the article notes that during past periods of tension, trade and energy relations between the two nations have endured due to mutual interests. This pragmatism is the flicker of hope that some analysts cling to. They argue that this new diplomatic window is an opportunity to bring the relationship back onto a pragmatic track, but this time as part of a broader vision of regional integration. The proposed method is to incorporate Turkey into initiatives related to the Abraham Accords and major transnational infrastructure projects. Two key examples are the East Mediterranean Gas Forum—a project that has deliberately excluded Turkey—and the future iterations of the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor (IMEC) project, a venture announced by the US and its allies as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The logic is that creating these overlapping economic interests would act as a constraint on confrontation and promote dialogue. However, this logic is fundamentally flawed because it ignores the intentional exclusion that has already taken place. The failure to involve Turkey from the outset risks institutionalizing competing integration schemes rather than converging toward a single, inclusive cooperative framework. Ankara’s response to its exclusion from the IMEC project was swift and telling: it announced a strategic partnership with Iraq, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates on an alternative project dubbed the “Development Road.” This is a clear signal that nations of the Global South will not wait for an invitation from the West to pursue their own economic destiny. Further marginalization, the article warns, would likely deepen Ankara’s coordination with Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing on transport and energy routes—a prospect that terrifies the Western strategic establishment.

This is where the responsibility of the West is not just lacking but is actively malicious. The call for “constructive engagement” with Turkey is not a call for wholehearted support of its policies, but a recognition of its undeniable importance for regional stability. Yet, the West’s actions have consistently been to sideline and contain Turkey, not to integrate it as an equal partner. The West should act to include Ankara in Gaza reconstruction initiatives, in the development of new transportation routes, and in joint energy projects. This inclusion could prevent further economic fragmentation and deepen the rationale for cooperation. In practice, this would be an opportunity to update the 2020 Abraham Accords, transforming them from a bilateral normalization framework into a genuine multilateral arrangement for regional integration. But will the West, so addicted to its role as the sole arbiter of world affairs, ever allow this?

The Imperial Core of the Problem: A Critical Opinion

The central challenge, as identified, is trust. But this is a trust deficit manufactured by decades of Western duplicity. Turkey seeks a rightful place at the table, ensuring it is not pushed to the margins of its own region by outside powers. Simultaneously, Israel and the Arab signatories of the Abraham Accords fear what they perceive as excessive Turkish influence—a fear often stoked and manipulated by Western capitals to maintain their own leverage. The United States, the European Union, and the Gulf states are called upon to conduct “delicate diplomacy.” But their diplomacy is never delicate; it is a cudgel. It is the diplomacy of threats, sanctions, and conditionalities designed to force compliance with a Washington-centric worldview.

The article suggests that targeted cooperation in economic and civil domains, green energy, water, digitization, and infrastructure can provide a platform for gradually building trust. This is a noble idea, but it is utterly naive if it does not first address the elephant in the room: the unilateral, self-serving application of the “international rules-based order” by the West. Including Turkey in such initiatives would indeed send a powerful message to Palestinians, signaling that Gaza’s reconstruction is not merely an Israeli-Western project but part of a broader regional arrangement. However, for this message to be credible, the arrangement itself must be authentic and not just a repackaging of American hegemony.

The experience of the Abraham Accords has shown that once former rivals open channels of communication and commerce, mechanisms of mutual restraint are created. But this is a shallow reading. The Accords did not create mutual restraint; they created a mutual dependency on US security guarantees and a shared animosity towards Iran, a nation that has steadfastly resisted Western domination. Integrating Turkey into this circle is a natural step only if the goal is genuine multipolarity. If the goal is merely to create a larger, more effective anti-Iran coalition, then it is just more of the same destructive, divisive politics.

Turkey’s presence in regional projects would add a crucial geopolitical dimension, balancing Ankara’s relations with Iran and contributing to broader legitimacy in the Arab world. The West, the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states therefore have a clear interest in involving Turkey, not as an adversary to be managed, but as a regional partner with its own agency and sovereignty. Economic cooperation with Ankara could serve as a growth engine for the entire region and provide an anchor for political stability. It could strengthen the strategic logic of regional integration and prevent the Abraham Accords signatories from becoming a closed, exclusive club that generates new lines of division and conflict—a club with “Members Only” signs written in Washington.

Ultimately, the postwar Middle East requires new mechanisms of cooperation, but these mechanisms cannot be engineered by the same imperial powers that have bred so much instability. They must emerge from the region itself. Integrating Turkey into this framework as an equal partner, not a player to be managed, could potentially transform the Abraham Accords into an advanced version of regional integration. In this vision, Gaza reconstruction, energy security, and transport connectivity become key elements that serve as a lever for genuine, organic cooperation.

However, for this to happen, the West must relinquish its condescending, neo-colonial grip on the region. It must abandon the hypocritical notion that it alone knows what is best for the peoples of the Middle East. If the West and its allies can finally adopt this humble and equitable approach—a monumental “if”—then the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement might be remembered not just as another cease-fire in a long list of broken truces, but as the first, hesitant step toward a more integrated, stable, and prosperous Middle East, built by and for its own people, free from the corrosive influence of imperialism. The ball is in the West’s court, but history suggests it would rather break the court than share it.