Türkiye’s foreign and security policies in 2025
Türkiye enters 2025 in an increasingly competitive and uncertain global political environment. The international system is characterized by intensifying great power rivalry, particularly between the U.S. and China, a protracted war in Ukraine and deepening instability in the Middle East. Against this backdrop, Türkiye is pursuing a pragmatic and interest-based foreign policy prioritizing security, economic resilience and strategic autonomy.
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SETA Security Radar | Türkiye’s Geopolitical Landscape in 2025
This edition sheds light on Türkiye’s approach to mitigating economic constraints, strengthening defense exports, and leveraging diplomatic influence to shape the regional and global security order in 2025.
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Türkiye has been following an active regional policy since the eruption of the Arab insurgencies and revolutions. One of the main principles of Türkiye’s regional policy is the principle of “regional initiatives for regional problems.”
The year 2024 has been recorded as one of the most brutal years for the Palestinian people and the Middle East. Israel insistently continued its genocide in Gaza and its expansionist and aggressive policies toward other regional states. Furthermore, it continued to recklessly violate the basic principles of international law and human rights. It seems that the year 2025 will not bring any change for the Palestinian people. Their destruction and resistance will continue.
The year 2024 has been recorded as one of the most critical years of modern times for the Middle Eastern region. It was full of conflicts, wars, humanitarian and economic crises, political devastation, mass killings and even genocide.
The Middle Eastern developments continue to set the agenda of international politics. The Al-Aqsa Flood has become a turning point for the whole region. The ongoing genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people and the Israeli aggression against the sovereignty of regional countries, directly and indirectly, influence all regional dynamics. Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian proxies in Syria have dramatically changed the Syrian context as well. As a result of the shifted regional balance of power, the opposition forces, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army (SNA), initiated a military operation against Syria's Bashar Assad regime on Nov. 27.
Who benefits from controlled proxy conflict?
The Middle East rang in the new year with assassinations and terror attacks. Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy leader of Hamas' political bureau, was assassinated in Beirut last Tuesday. The following day, two bombings in Kirman, Iran (for which Daesh has claimed responsibility) killed 103 people. As those attacks shifted everyone’s attention to Israel, Iran and Hezbollah pledged to exact “revenge and a heavy price.”
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Funding Violence with Drugs: The Cases of Hezbollah and the PKK
Hezbollah and the PKK use black market relations and criminal networks to receive huge amounts of easy money.
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Russia wouldn't want to lose face in Tehran despite having bowed to Israeli pressures to limit their support for Bashar Assad and Hezbollah. Willing to do anything to weaken the Assad regime and Iran, Israel openly supports a federal solution.
Hezbollah will face its real crisis when it completes its transformation from a respected regional actor to a lonely actor.
Hezbollah continues to recklessly spend the capital it has built with its resistance against Israel on the Baath regime.
