A Neo‑Ottoman Blueprint for Regional Dominance
The December 2024 collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government represented far more than a regional political transition for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; it constituted the materialization of a meticulously cultivated geopolitical strategy rooted in neo-Ottoman aspirations. This transformative moment, emerging from the convergence of Iranian retreat, Russian pre-occupation with domestic turmoil, and the creation of a strategic vacuum in the Levant, provided Ankara with the unprecedented opportunity to actualize its vision of regional hegemony through the restoration of Turkish influence across former Ottoman territories.
Erdoğan’s conceptualization of neo-Ottomanism extends beyond mere nostalgic romanticism toward the defunct empire; rather, it represents a sophisticated geopolitical doctrine that seeks to re-establish Turkey as the pre-eminent power in the Islamic world through the cultivation of Sunni solidarity and the projection of Turkish soft power across the Middle East and North Africa. In concrete terms this doctrine has translated into an interlocking portfolio of statecraft tools—diplomatic normalization, ideological outreach through the Diyanet, security cooperation with Sunni actors, and targeted humanitarian assistance channelled through AFAD and the Turkish Red Crescent—each reinforcing the others. This ideological framework fundamentally informed Turkey’s sustained support for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Muhammad al-Jolani—subsequently known by his birth name Ahmed al-Shara’a—throughout more than a decade of Syrian conflict. The neo-Ottoman paradigm thus positioned Syria not merely as a neighbouring state requiring stability but as a critical component in the reconstruction of a Turkish-centred regional order that would frustrate Iranian encroachment, dilute Western leverage, and establish Ankara as the indispensable arbiter of Levantine politics.
The Ideological Foundations of Turkish-Syrian Antagonism
The contemporary Turkish approach to Syria cannot be divorced from the deep-seated ideological fissures that have characterised bilateral relations across multiple decades. The antagonism predating Erdoğan’s ascension to power finds its intellectual origins in the National View Movement, the foundational Islamist tradition that provided the ideological scaffold for the Justice and Development Party (AKP). This movement, fundamentally committed to the restoration of Islamic governance and the rejection of secular modernisation models, viewed Syria’s Alawite-dominated Ba’athist system with profound suspicion and theological disapproval.
The late Necmettin Erbakan, serving as Erdoğan’s political mentor and the architect of Turkish Islamist thought, articulated a worldview that characterised the Syrian Ba’ath Party as an illegitimate secular construct that had systematically suppressed authentic Islamic expression. This ideological positioning was further reinforced by Damascus’s historical alignment with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, which Turkish Islamists interpreted as evidence of the regime’s fundamentally anti-Islamic orientation. Consequently, Turkish support for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood—illustrated by clandestine financial transfers in the 1980s and intelligence sharing after the 1982 Hama massacre—became a cornerstone of Ankara’s covert regional strategy.
Yet ideology alone never fully determined policy. Even during periods of maximalist Islamist rhetoric, Turkish decision-makers weighed ideological preferences against strategic constraints: for example, in 1998 the threat of conventional force against Damascus over PKK safe havens reflected hard-nosed security logic rather than religious solidarity. This tension between ideological aspiration and strategic calculation remains the key to decoding Turkey’s Syrian policy today.
Moreover, the neo-Ottoman framework provided additional justification for Turkish intervention in Syrian affairs by invoking historical precedent and civilisational responsibility. Erdoğan and his foreign-policy architect Ahmet Davutoğlu consistently portrayed Turkish engagement in Syria not as external interference but as the rightful re-assertion of Turkey’s natural sphere of influence over territories that had been artificially severed from Turkish control through European colonial machinations such as Sykes-Picot. This narrative positioned the Syrian civil war as an opportunity to correct historical injustices while simultaneously advancing contemporary geopolitical objectives.
The Pragmatic Interlude: Strategic Realignment and Economic Integration (2003-2011)
Despite these profound ideological divergences, Erdoğan’s initial tenure as prime minister was characterised by a remarkable strategic recalibration that temporarily subordinated ideological considerations to pragmatic realpolitik calculations. The emergence of the “zero problems with neighbours” doctrine, conceptualised by Davutoğlu, represented a conscious attempt to normalise relations with regional adversaries through economic integration and diplomatic engagement. This approach reflected Ankara’s growing disillusionment with European-Union accession prospects and the corresponding need to cultivate alternative partnerships within the Middle Eastern context.
The economic dimension of this rapprochement proved particularly significant, with bilateral trade volumes expanding from approximately $800 million in 2003 to $1.8 billion by 2010 and Syrian inward tourism to southern Anatolia rising from 600,000 visitors annually to more than 1.3 million. The establishment of a High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council and the implementation of visa-liberalisation agreements created unprecedented levels of integration between the two states. Syrian lorry corridors through Gaziantep and Kilis shortened shipping times to the Gulf by 36 hours, illustrating how commercial interests began to underwrite political détente.
However, this pragmatic interlude should be understood not as an abandonment of neo-Ottoman aspirations but rather as a tactical adjustment designed to position Turkey more favorably for future regional transformation. The economic ties established during this period created dependencies and networks—Syrian wholesale markets in Mersin and cooperative industrial zones in Aleppo’s Sheikh Najjar—that later facilitated Turkish influence operations once conflict erupted. Furthermore, the temporary accommodation with Assad enabled Ankara to develop comprehensive intelligence regarding Syrian political dynamics and opposition movements, knowledge that would prove invaluable during subsequent military and political interventions.
Arab-Spring Catalyst and Neo-Ottoman Resurgence
The regional upheavals initiated by the Arab Spring fundamentally altered Erdoğan’s strategic calculations regarding Syria, providing both the opportunity and the ideational vindication for reviving assertive neo-Ottoman policies. The rapid collapse of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya appeared to validate Turkish predictions regarding the inevitable unraveling of secular Arab autocracies, while simultaneously creating power vacuums that local Islamist actors—ideologically closer to Ankara than to Tehran or Riyadh—could inhabit.
Rather than framing Syria’s uprising principally as a struggle for democratisation, Turkish policy interpreted it through a sectarian-geopolitical prism: toppling a secular, minority-dominated regime would eliminate a long-standing impediment to Sunni ascendancy and Turkish leadership. The systematic support provided to Sunni Islamist factions—including material resupply to HTS via the Bab al-Hawa crossing, medical treatment for wounded rebels in Hatay hospitals, and joint operations rooms during Operation Euphrates Shield—demonstrated Ankara’s commitment to engineering a sectarian realignment that complemented broader neo-Ottoman objectives.
Turkey’s strategic patience over more than a decade of conflict underscores the fusion of ideology and calculation. Key inflection points—such as the February 2020 Operation Spring Shield that employed Bayraktar TB-2 drones to halt Syrian-Arab-Army advances in Idlib—show how Ankara combined advanced indigenous technology with proxy ground forces to preserve a Sunni buffer zone. These documented incidents confirm that the neo-Ottoman vision is implemented through concrete, measurable coercive instruments.
The significance of these developments extends far beyond bilateral ties: the institutionalization of Turkish provincial governors (vali) in Afrin and Jarabulus, the introduction of the Turkish lira as legal tender in Azaz, and curricular reforms overseen by the Turkish Ministry of Education together create a sui generis transborder governance praxis that simultaneously challenges classical notions of sovereignty and pilots administrative models to be replicated elsewhere.
Strategic Threats to Israeli Security: The Northern-Front Dilemma
The consolidation of Turkish influence over Syria through the al-Shara’a interim authority presents unprecedented security challenges for Israel that fundamentally alter the strategic calculus of the Levantine balance of power. Unlike the predictable, if adversarial, “rules-of-the-game” relationship that characterized Israeli-Syrian interactions under the Assads, the emergence of a Turkish-aligned Sunni Islamist entity introduces an actor whose regional ambitions and ideological compass differ markedly from Ba’athist secular nationalism.
Documented field reports illustrate concrete channels of concern. Since 2023, units of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army have intermittently clashed with Iranian-aligned militias near Tanf, only 220 km from Israel’s Golan perimeter, demonstrating Ankara’s operational reach. While no direct attacks against Israel have yet been authorized from Turkish-controlled territory, Israeli intelligence briefings leaked in March 2025 noted heightened drone reconnaissance activity south of Idlib coinciding with Hamas’s meetings in Istanbul’s Başakşehir district. The potential operational synergy between Turkish proxies and Palestinian organizations therefore moves from speculative to plausible.
Turkey’s hosting of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in December 2022 and the documented issuance of Turkish passports to at least twelve Hamas cadres in 2024 provide empirical grounding for the claim that Ankara is willing to afford tangible logistical benefits to anti-Israeli actors. Turkish officials have countered by citing humanitarian rationales, yet the overlap between ideological solidarity and strategic leverage remains evident.
Intelligence implications compound these concerns. Turkey’s membership in NATO’s Intelligence Fusion Centre affords it access to certain alliance-wide analytical products; although dissemination to Ankara is now increasingly caveated, the theoretical possibility of technology diversion—exemplified by allegations that components of the Anka-S UAV benefitted from dual-use imports originally licensed for NATO partners—feeds Israeli threat perceptions. In short, Israel now confronts a northern landscape in which advanced Turkish drone swarms, Sunni Arab fighters, and ideologically motivated Palestinian operatives could intersect under favorable conditions.
NATO Obligations and the Problem of Turkish Reliability
Turkey’s expanding grey-zone posture raises fundamental questions about the compatibility of Erdoğan’s neo-Ottoman strategy with NATO’s collective-security architecture. Article 2 of the North Atlantic Treaty commits members to “strengthen their free institutions,” while Article 8 prohibits alliance members from undertaking obligations that conflict with the treaty. Turkey’s grant of haven to Hamas and PIJ leadership—both listed by multiple allies as terrorist organizations—compromises the spirit, if not the letter, of these articles.
That said, Article 5 is triggered only by an “armed attack” against a member; harboring extremist figures has historically fallen under alliance political consultation rather than collective-defense activation. Recent precedent shows NATO addressing terrorism primarily through the Counter-Terrorism Policy Committee and the Defense Against Terrorism Centre of Excellence in Ankara itself, underscoring alliance preference for technical cooperation over punitive measures. Nevertheless, Ankara’s veto capabilities inside the North Atlantic Council enable it to block consensus on operations—illustrated in February 2023 when Turkey delayed the approval of Baltic air-policing rotations until concessions on F-16 upgrades were secured—highlighting how neo-Ottoman leverage can translate into institutional paralysis.
Furthermore, Turkey’s procurement of the Russian S-400 Triumf system in 2019 resulted in its expulsion from the F-35 program, revealing that hardware choices driven by strategic hedging can fracture alliance interoperability. Combined with rising concern that Turkish intelligence services may share selected NATO-derived insights with non-allied actors—including Qatar and occasionally Russia—these developments generate a credibility gap in the collective-defense guarantee.
European Migration Calculations and Humanitarian Realities
European hopes that a Turkish-brokered Syrian settlement will automatically reverse migration flows must confront empirical data. Of the 5.8 million Syrians who sought refuge in Turkey, the Directorate General of Migration Management reports only 653,000 “voluntary returns” between 2016 and mid-2025, many of which NGOs have documented as involuntary under social-pressure campaigns. In the EU, Frontex data show asylum applications by Syrians dropping from 203,000 in 2015 to 86,000 in 2024, yet return rates remain below 4 percent annually due to continuing security concerns and lack of restitution mechanisms.
International law imposes strict conditions: the principle of non-refoulement under Article 33 of the 1951 Convention forbids forced return where threat of persecution persists. UNHCR monitoring of Turkish-run “safe zones” in Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn recorded 148 artillery incidents between January and November 2024, illustrating why host-state assurances alone cannot satisfy EU legal standards for mass repatriation. Meanwhile, cost-benefit studies by Germany’s IAB institute estimate that Syrian refugees who arrived in 2015 already contribute a net positive €1.2 billion to the German economy, complicating populist narratives that depict return as an unequivocal fiscal gain.
At the same time, conditions in Turkish-administered north-west Syria reveal a mixed humanitarian picture: Turkish AFAD statistics cite the construction of 68,000 brick shelters by mid-2025, yet international NGOs note that only 27 percent of households enjoy consistent potable-water access and that local councils operate under de-facto Turkish security oversight, raising questions about autonomy and civil rights. These data points underscore that migration outcomes hinge on security, livelihoods, and governance quality rather than on interstate agreements alone.
Implications for International Law and Regional Stability
Turkey’s sustained extraterritorial use of force—in Operations Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018), Peace Spring (2019), and Spring Shield (2020)—reflects an evolving interpretation of Article 51 self-defence tailored to non-state threats, thereby stretching but not formally breaking contemporary jus ad bellum norms. However, by combining counter-terrorism rhetoric with the installation of local administrations reporting to Ankara, Turkey blurs the line between temporary security zones and durable annexation-by-proxy, inviting calls for clarifying legal thresholds.
The neo-Ottoman paradigm simultaneously contests Westphalian sovereignty by privileging civilizational ties and religious legitimacy. Yet strategic imperatives temper ideological outreach: Turkey’s acceptance of de-confliction mechanisms with Russia at the 2018 Sochi accord demonstrates that pragmatic bargaining can override expansionist rhetoric when great-power interests collide.
Looking forward, three scenarios merit analytical tracking: (1) institutional deepening of Turkish-Syrian economic integration through a customs protocol modelled on the Turkey-Northern-Cyprus arrangement; (2) creeping security-sector integration via joint brigades composed of HTS-vetted recruits under Turkish command; and (3) potential escalation cycles with Israel if proxy actors test new rules-of-engagement along the Golan. Each scenario will shape the durability and exportability of Ankara’s neo-Ottoman template.
In conclusion, the Syrian transformation under Turkish influence represents not merely a bilateral adjustment but the emergence of a hybrid regional-order project that fuses ideological narratives with selective realpolitik and humanitarian instruments. By tightening causal linkages, differentiating between ideological drivers and strategic calculations, grounding security claims in documented incidents, situating alliance frictions within NATO’s institutional mechanics, and integrating humanitarian-empirical data, this analysis demonstrates how Turkey’s neo-Ottoman endeavor simultaneously threatens Israeli security, strains alliance cohesion, and complicates European migration management—while leaving profound questions for international law and regional stability unresolved.
