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ISTANBUL — Turkey is delivering an increasingly pointed warning to Washington against a backdrop of escalating violence in neighboring Iran: What the Trump administration may see as an opportunity, Ankara sees as the prelude to catastrophe.
Over the weekend, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan openly accused Israeli intelligence of orchestrating the unrest in Iran, which has led to a deadly government crackdown on protesters. Human rights groups fear the eventual death toll could reach well into the thousands.
“Mossad doesn’t hide it. They are calling on the Iranian people to revolt against the regime through their own internet and Twitter accounts,” Mr. Fidan said.
Speaking after a meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ruling party spokesman Omer Celik reinforced the message.
“We never want chaos in our neighbor Iran,” Mr. Celik said. “Foreign interventions always make things worse.”
Those warnings reflect hard lessons from Iraq and Syria, where U.S. interventions left Turkey absorbing millions of refugees and managing years of regional spillover.
Turkey’s caution is not rooted in affection for Iran’s Islamic republic. Ankara has repeatedly confronted Tehran over the past decade by supporting Azerbaijan when Iran threatened Baku in 2020, fortifying the Iranian border and backing opposing sides in Syria’s civil war.
Mr. Erdogan underscored this point in December 2020, when he read a poem in Baku referencing “divided Azerbaijan,” a pointed signal given his earlier imprisonment for reciting politically charged poetry.
Still, Mr. Fidan said he does not expect the Iranian regime to collapse. He said the current unrest is smaller than the 2022 protests. Some Iranian analysts dispute that assessment, although it reflects Ankara’s broader focus on instability rather than regime survival.
Despite Turkey’s rivalry with Tehran, analysts at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, an Ankara-based think tank — SETA, in Turkish — stress that preserving Iran’s territorial integrity and internal stability remains a core Turkish interest.
“Despite the underlying tension and competition in Iran-Turkey relations, preserving Iran’s territorial integrity and stability is a priority for Turkey,” said Mustafa Caner, arguing that unrest lacking clear leadership or political direction is unlikely to translate into regime change.
SETA analysts also caution against foreign intervention or escalatory rhetoric. They said outside pressure could worsen instability rather than produce reform. In Ankara’s strategic calculus, pressure that erodes state authority in Iran is viewed less as leverage than as a trigger for broader regional disruption affecting borders and energy routes.
The reasoning is rooted in experience. When the United States intervened in Iraq in the 1990s, Turkey absorbed waves of refugees and economic shock. After Syria collapsed in 2011, Turkey ended up hosting 4 million to 5 million refugees. Ankara says it is still managing the burden.
During the 12-day war between Iran and Israel last year, Turkish officials quietly signaled that, unlike with Syria, Ankara would not welcome Iranian refugees. Authorities increased border security and conveyed through back channels that Turkey had reached capacity.
“Turkey has a very bad memory about destabilization of its neighbors, especially Iraq since 2003,” said Serhan Afacan, who heads the Center for Iranian Studies in Ankara. “And Syria is even worse.”
If Iran follows a similar course, he said, “you have the Turks, millions of them, you have the Kurds, the Arabs, the Baluch. That’s a mess Turkey doesn’t want to deal with.” Still, Mr. Afacan said, he does not foresee such a scenario.
Tehran shifts blame outward
As the crackdown has intensified, Iranian officials have increasingly sought to externalize responsibility for the unrest.
On Tuesday, Iran’s top military commander accused the United States and Israel of deploying operatives from the Islamic State group inside Iran to carry out attacks against civilians and security forces.
Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said the alleged operation followed what he described as a failure of the U.S. and Israel in a recent “12-day war,” according to Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency.
Mr. Mousavi said ISIS operatives, whom he described as “mercenaries,” were sent into the country to conduct violent attacks against civilians and security personnel.
“Iran will not tolerate any violation of its sovereignty or territorial integrity,” he said. Security forces acted with restraint but would not allow “terrorist elements” to operate in the streets.
Iranian officials have repeatedly framed the protests as foreign-backed and accused the U.S. and Israel of supporting “armed rioters.” Analysts say the narrative serves to justify mass arrests and deter fence-sitters by casting unrest as a national security threat rather than a domestic uprising.
A near-total internet blackout has sharply limited independent verification of events inside Iran. Ankara and other regional capitals say the dynamic increases the risk of miscalculation.
Setting aside the question of Iran’s government, American interests are concrete.
Iran has about 890 pounds of enriched uranium, most of which is at high enrichment levels. If Iran descends into chaos, that material, along with decades of accumulated weapons stockpiles, could destabilize the region or fall into the hands of terrorist groups or rogue states seeking nuclear capability.
Brenda Shaffer, a U.S. expert on the Caucasus region, drew a parallel to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“The first thing we did when the Soviet Union collapsed was work with [Boris] Yeltsin on securing the materials,” she said.
Ms. Shaffer said a narrowly focused operation to secure fissile material could attract broad international support but warned against Washington aligning with any Iranian political faction.
“I think it’s important not to bet on any horses — not the [shah’s heirs], not anybody,” she said. “Iran is so deeply fractured that hitching America’s wagon to any one faction would be a huge risk.”
Turkish analysts see the nuclear issue as more than a security concern but rather as a diplomatic lever.
“This pressure on the Iran nuclear program makes a lot of sense because there’s a legal framework around uranium enrichment and a history of negotiations,” Mr. Afacan said. “It’s an instrument, not just to prevent weaponization but to influence Iran’s ballistic missile program and regional policy.”
Beyond nonproliferation, U.S. interests include preventing weapons from flooding into Iraq and Syria, avoiding an oil production collapse that could spike global energy prices, and maintaining stability for trade corridors such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, where President Trump has invested diplomatic capital.
The protests have concentrated primarily in Persian-majority urban centers, including Tehran, with more limited participation in minority regions. Analysts continue to debate the extent to which ethnic dimensions contribute to the unrest.
“The Turks in Iran have not participated much in these protests,” Mr. Afacan told The Washington Times. He noted limited Kurdish activity but organized violence in Sistan-Baluchistan along the Pakistani border.
Historical memory shapes caution. After the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini crushed former allies and launched military campaigns against Kurds, Turkmen and Azerbaijanis.
“He killed all the communists, and then he started huge massacres of the Turkmen, the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis,” Ms. Shaffer said. “Little by little, he subdued all the minorities.”
For Turkey, concerns about Iranian fragmentation stem less from 1979 than from Ankara’s experience with separatist movements.
“Turkey is very sensitive because it has its own history with this kind of separatism,” said Mr. Afacan, citing post-World War I and post-World War II secessionist movements in parts of Iran and decades of PKK insurgency. “Turkey is very much against any sort of separatist movements in the Middle East.”
Turkish analysts outline three possible outcomes.
The first envisions regime survival with continued tension — “bad, but preferable to Israeli attacks,” as Mr. Afacan put it — though he noted this is not the most likely scenario given mounting U.S. pressure and growing domestic demands for change.
The second and more likely outcome, and the one Ankara prefers, involves Iran negotiating with neighbors and the West and modifying its nuclear and regional behavior.
“Turkey believes Iran can make some changes to its nuclear file and its regional policy,” Mr. Afacan said. That, he said, would “decrease tension and eliminate the risk of a second conflict.”
The third scenario is what he called a nightmare: the Revolutionary Guards consolidating direct control and creating “a second North Korea.”
Turkey’s position matters because Ankara controls critical geography: NATO’s southeastern flank, potential refugee routes, and relationships with Russia and regional powers. If Turkey does not support regime change efforts, then implementation becomes far more complicated for Washington.
Turkish officials have suggested that Mr. Erdogan could play a mediating role. Mr. Fidan has said Iran needs to pursue “very genuine reconciliation and cooperation” with its regional neighbors, positioning Turkey as a potential facilitator for renewed engagement with the West.
“Turkey believes President Trump is not — and should not be — going to attack Iran,” Mr. Afacan said. “What President Trump has done still leaves room and chance for negotiation.”
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