Turkey Using Energy To Boost Erdogan’s Geopolitical Clout

Turkey’s influence in Syria has expanded since the fall of Assad, after its contributions to HTS’ military campaign and agreements with the transitional government. (Photo by Mehmet Ali Ozcan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Anadolu via Getty Images

Turkey sits at the intersection of Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East—a prime geopolitical piece of real estate in the Eastern hemisphere. As Europe and the U.S. seek to reduce reliance on Russian energy corridors as well as Iranian oil and gas, Ankara is moving quickly to position itself as the key transit hub linking Asia and Europe. Lacking significant reserves of its own, Turkey is leveraging its geographical position, including Russia/the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Iraq, post-war Syria, and access to Europe. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is balancing alliances to expand his country’s regional influence.

The collapse of Syria’s Assad regime at the hands of Turkey-supported Hayat Tahrir al Sham, an Al Qaeda/ISIS derivative; the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war; and escalating tensions between Iran, Israel, and the U.S. have reshaped the region’s power dynamics. With Russia and Iran weakened, Turkey is stepping in—not just as a political-military actor, but as a logistical hub. From thus far unsuccessful attempts to revive the Kurdistan oil pipeline to exploring routes from Azerbaijan through Armenia and Iraq’s Development Road project, Ankara is pushing an ambitious campaign on three fronts —energy transit, diplomacy, and military clout — to boost its geopolitical influence.

Assad’s Fall: A Historic Turning Point in Syria and the Middle East

In the decade-long, brutal Syrian civil war, more than 600,000 people were killed, some 5.4 million became refugees, and almost 7 million internally displaced people. After decades of tyranny, Assad’s murderous regime fell in December 2024, turning Middle East geopolitics upside down. Assad was backed by both Iran and Russia. With Moscow having its military stretched thin in Ukraine, and Iran’s air defenses laid bare after Israel had decapitated its proxy Hezbollah, both of these regional powers have lost significant leverage. While Russia appears to have lost its only naval refueling station in the Mediterranean, Iran lost its closest Shia Arab ally.

Turkey, on the other hand, emerged as the primary external power in post-war Syria. Ankara backed many of the rebel groups loosely united under the Syrian National Army and conducted several military campaigns along its southern border to attack Kurdish militants it viewed as a threat to its national security.

After Assad’s defeat, Ankara quickly moved to sign agreements with the new Syrian HTS transitional government, despite its Al-Qaeda pedigree. Although Turkey initially labeled HTS a terrorist group, as did the U.S. until Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the designation in July 2025, it nevertheless supplied HTS advanced weaponry along with military and logistical backing, reinforcing the group’s stronghold in Northern Syria, from where it ended up overthrowing Assad.

Turkey views post-war Syria as an opportunity to make billions on trade and reconstruction, as well as expanded energy and defense projects. There is talk of Turkey building a military base in Syria to train and rebuild the capabilities of the Syrian army. This further increases Turkey’s influence over Syria and may cause tensions with Israel, which Ankara regularly attacks in the Turkish and international media. Finally, there is also hope that some of the millions of Syrian refugees Turkey has been hosting will return home, as their presence abroad has caused domestic tensions and a decline in Erdogan’s popularity.

Turkey Uses its Strategic Position to Assert Itself as a Regional Heavyweight and a Transit Hub

Turkey also walks a tightrope between NATO, Russia, and Ukraine. Istanbul hosted Russia-Ukraine peace talks once again in May and July 2025. Turkey positions itself as pro-Ukraine by providing military support and closing the Straits to the Russian navy, while not being anti-Russian. Ankara has not joined in sanctions against the Kremlin and keeps diplomatic ties open with both countries. While its complex relations with Russia are an asset according to Erdogan, positioning Turkey as a unique mediator in this conflict makes other NATO members see it as an unreliable partner.

Russia’s traditional influence has decreased in the Caucasus too, and Ankara is filling that power vacuum as well. Although it has been a strong ally to Azerbaijan, normalizing relations with Armenia is now on the table. After decades of closed borders, Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian Prime Minister, made history by being the Armenian leader to make the first official visit to Turkey since Armenian independence. Ankara is even attempting to play a mediator role between its two neighbors over the peace treaty that would end Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

This mediation and normalization could, in return, also pave the way for a pipeline that delivers Azerbaijani gas to Europe via Armenia and Turkey, through the Zangezur Corridor now known as Trump’s Route for Peace and Prosperity. This would break Armenia’s isolation from key transit routes, decrease its reliance on Russia, and position Turkey further as an energy transit hub. Currently, the Southern Gas Corridor (including TANAP) already transfers Azerbaijani gas via Georgia to Turkey and Europe, but bypasses Armenia. However, the Zangezur corridor would offer a complementary route, which could mean further expansion of the Armenian economy, its regional transit role, and greater strategic depth in the Caucasus for Ankara.

Lastly, Ankara submitted a proposal to Iraq to renew the deal over the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which has not been operational since 2023 due to political and financial disputes. An arbitration court ruled in 2023 that Ankara must pay $1.5 billion in damages to Baghdad over illegal oil exports from Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government during 2014 to 2018. The dispute arose after Turkey loaded Iraqi crude oil onto a tanker at the Turkish Port of Ceyhan at the instructions of the Kurdistan Regional Government – a violation of Turkey’s 1973 pipeline agreement with Iraq.

While Baghdad aims to control oil exports centrally, Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, is focused on achieving economic and political autonomy. Negotiations between Baghdad, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, and independent oil producers have not resulted in an agreement on terms, further delaying the reactivation of the pipeline. However, Ankara has now even larger ambitions, like the Development Road project, a major $17-20 billion infrastructure corridor linking Iraq’s Basra Port (on the Persian Gulf) to Turkey’s border and then onward into Europe. It combines highways, railways, and plans for a pipeline and electricity transmission infrastructure. This could be an alternative to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline that connects oil fields in Basra to Ceyhan, bypassing Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region entirely.

An Important but Complicated U.S. and NATO ally

While Turkey is notionally a U.S. ally and NATO member, its self-centered and contradictory policies towards Russia, Hamas, and Israel often create tensions with Washington. Turkey never joined the West in imposing sanctions on Russia, becoming a top purchaser of Russian crude oil and an increasingly important destination for Russian natural gas following the expiration of Gazprom’s transit deal with Ukraine. Ankara was also complicit in Russian sanctions evasion, exploiting Gazprombank’s unsanctioned status to channel billions through U.S. banks into Turkey’s state-owned Ziraat Bank, which then distributed the funds to Russian companies to finance Russia’s war effort.

Turkey’s record as a complicated partner is hardly unique to its ties with Washington. Ankara has similarly found itself at odds with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as it supports The Muslim Brotherhood global militant Islamist movement, banned in many Muslim countries. Turkey protested when Egypt’s former defense minister and current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi in 2013, souring relations with Cairo; while the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul exacerbated tensions with Riyadh. Diverging positions on Libya and the Saudi blockade of Qatar only deepened Turkey’s rift with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, frictions that had been simmering since the Arab Spring.

Most notably, while the U.S. is Israel’s strongest backer, Erdogan has been one of Jerusalem’s most vocal critics, providing shelter and economic support to top Hamas terrorists, comparing Netanyahu to Hitler at a UN assembly, and creating diplomatic tensions. Even though Erdogan and Netanyahu are both on good terms with Trump, they are deeply at odds over Gaza and Syria.

These tensions, along with Turkey’s balancing act between Russia and NATO, make its partnership with the U.S. highly situational, cooperative in some theaters like Ukraine and the Caucasus, but increasingly divergent in the Middle East. As Ankara pursues its own strategic path, often funded by and coordinated with Qatar, where it deploys roughly 4000 soldiers, Washington must manage a difficult NATO member whose regional ambitions frequently undermine U.S. allies and strategic priorities.

As traditional energy routes through Russia became politically unviable, and Iran’s intransigence is likely to focus more sanctions on its energy exports, Turkey is positioning itself to fill the gap. From Syria to the Caucasus, from Iraq to Armenia, Ankara’s foreign policy is increasingly tied to pipelines, corridors, strategic chokepoints — and support of militant Islamist movements.

Energy transit is no longer just a component of its regional role; it is the complement of its geopolitical strategy. As regional alliances shift and global demand for alternative routes to Russia and Iran grows, Ankara is betting that control over infrastructure will translate into long-term strategic leverage and become a force multiplier.