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By Emil Avdaliani
The Development Road – a 1200 km long project stretching from Turkey to the Persian Gulf via Iraq – could see renewed momentum for its realization. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz compels Baghdad to look north for sea access via Turkey. For Turkey, the Development Road offers economic benefit, leverage over European supply chains and deeper influence in Iraq. The Hormuz crisis has strengthened Ankara's argument that overland corridors through Turkey are not optional but strategically necessary.
BACKGROUND:
The Development Road is a road-and-rail corridor stretching from Iraq’s southern ports near Basra northward to Turkey and then onto the European market. The project is estimated to cost around $17 billion and seeks to turn Iraq into a regional transit hub. Its core geopolitical purpose is to transform Iraq from a state heavily relying on oil exports and plagued by internal instability into a logistics bridge between Asia, the Gulf and Europe.
This is not the first time that the Development Road is being actively discussed. Iraq and Turkey have long expressed interest in the realization of the project. In Iraq, the ambition to position the country as a key transit artery originated in the Cold War era, but could not be realized during the turmoil of the last decades of Saddam Husein’s rule and the chaos that ensued the US invasion. But the Iraqi ambition also has deeper historical roots: the region served as a major transit route for ancient and medieval silk roads linking the Persian Gulf with the Mediterranean world.
Yet, what makes the present attempt to build the project more realistic is Turkey’s growing interest as a result of changed geopolitical circumstances. Turkey has been consistent in its support for the Development Road. One major factor that drives Ankara is the fear that it might be cut out from new routes of regional connectivity. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which was proposed in September 2023 and is supported by the United States, Israel, the EU and key Middle Eastern countries explicitly bypassed Turkey.
To avoid being sidelined, Ankara announced the same year that it would double down on its efforts to develop the route through Iraq. Later in April 2024 a quadrilateral memorandum was inked between Iraq, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Iraq. That agreement provided the project a regional framework and brought Gulf capital into a corridor that had previously been exclusively Iraqi-Turkish.
Another factor benefiting the realization of the project is the Middle Eastern conflagration. With the Strait of Hormuz blocked and the Red Sea route under increasing threat, the chances of a successful implementation of the IMEC project are limited. The Iran war and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have deepened Turkey’s interest in accelerating the project and strengthened its argument that overland corridors through Turkey are not optional but strategically necessary.
Ankara wants to position itself as the northern outlet of Gulf trade and a central node between the Middle East and Europe. For Turkey, the Development Road offers economic benefit, leverage over European supply chains and deeper influence in Iraq. The economic rewards promise to be substantial: it is believed that the Development Road will add $55 billion over the next decade to the Turkish economy and create up to 70,000 jobs per year.
For Iraq too, this could be a golden political opportunity. Baghdad has long argued that the Development Road can diversify the economy, generate jobs and reduce reliance on hydrocarbons. The Hormuz crisis makes that argument more convincing to external partners. Europe sees the corridor as part of a broader strategy to reduce dependence on maritime supply routes. Meanwhile, the UAE and Qatar both now have stronger incentives to invest in overland logistics, dry ports and customs infrastructure. The fact that Qatar and the UAE joined the Development Road framework in 2024, well before the Hormuz crisis, is evidence that Gulf states were alert to the need to diversify their export routes.
IMPLICATIONS:
The disruption of the shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has had a significant effect on global shipping, particularly on the Middle East-Asia trade in oil and gas. Even if and when the Hormuz blockade is lifted, many Asian countries will be compelled to shift their oil and gas supply chains. While the Development Road would not fully replace Hormuz, especially not for crude oil and LNG flows, the project could see a boost to its development as a complementary overland corridor.
For Turkey the Development Road offers an opportunity to elevate its position as a central player in the Middle Eastern connectivity. The project would allow Ankara to incresase its engagement with the Persian and Gulf and eventually also beyond, to the Indian Ocean. This fits into the Turkish ambition of developing close relations with the wealthy Arab monarchies and to reconfigure the region’s trade routes so that they enhanceTurkey’s geopolitical clout.
In 2025 Iraq activated the TIR international transit system with pilot operations between Turkey’s Mersin and Iraq’s Umm Qasr Port. This is significant because it addresses one of the corridor’s core weaknesses: customs, paperwork, and border delays. Iraqi authorities also expanded the operation of the Al-Faw port which is scheduled to reach 3.5 million containers by 2028. This matters for Turkey because without Faw functioning as a major Gulf gateway, the Development Road’s impact will be limited.
Turkey’s Development Road ambitions also fit into a wider context of Turkish geostrategic expansion. In the South Caucasus, Ankara and Yerevan are pushing ahead with their stated goal to open up their long-closed common border and renew direct trade ties. Meanwhile Turkey strives to expand the Middle Corridor through Georgia, Azerbaijan to Central Asia. In Syria and Jordan, Ankara aspires to re-open the Hijaz railway linking the Anatolian heartland with the Arabian peninsula. In a northern direction Turkey serves as a primary commercial route for Russia for its trade with the Mediterranean world and parts of the African continent.
Yet, the Development Road is vulnerable to the disruption of maritime access to the Gulf as that inevitably will hamper trade with Asia. Iraq’s Grand Faw Port can only become a Europe-bound gateway if ships can safely enter the northern Gulf. A full blockade of Hormuz would therefore severely reduce Iraq’s links with the Indian Ocean. So, while the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz increases the strategic demand for an alternative such as the Development Road, it also undermines the project’s commercial potential.
At the same time, higher oil prices could increase Iraq’s fiscal revenues, offering Baghdad more room to fund infrastructure. On the other hand, insurance costs, energy-price volatility and anxiety among investors will raise the cost of capital. Construction materials, machinery and imported equipment risks becoming more expensive or delayed. If the Iran conflict escalates, international contractors may hesitate to work in southern Iraq, especially near Basra. The project already faces governance, security and coordination challenges, and the Hormuz crisis, should it continue indefinitely, will magnify all of them.
The security dimension is likewise important. The Development Road must pass through a country where armed groups, factional politics and external influence remain prevalent. The Hormuz blockade puts Iraq in a geopolitically delicate position. Tehran potentially could hinder the operation of a corridor that would limit Iran’s connectivity role in the region.
CONCLUSION:
The geopolitical situation in the Middle East has created favorable conditions for the Iraqi-Turkish Development Road. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) that the United States, Israel, the EU and key Middle Eastern countries favor has little chance of being realized any time soon. Meanwhile, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has further elevated the role the Development Road could play.
The Iraqi - Turkish alternative is burdened by its own share of challenges, and the Hormuz blockade won’t necessarily accelerate the realization of the Development Road. Iraq remains plagued by instability, internal divisions and is vulnerable to Iranian meddling.
Yet, Turkey’s growing interest and commitment to the project, along with the pressing need to chart new routes of connectivity, can boost it. In any case, the Hormuz crisis has strengthened Ankara’s argument that overland corridors through Turkey are not optional but strategically necessary.
AUTHOR'S BIO:
Emil Avdaliani is a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the hitory of silk roads and the interests of great powers in the Middle East and the Caucasus.
By Halil Karaveli
The Erdoğan regime has now introduced an innovation to the longstanding Turkish state tradition of party closures by appointing a trustee to lead the main opposition CHP. The CHP’s leader Özgür Özel was caught off-guard by the decision to depose him. His performance has been unsteady, perhaps because he senses that he has only unpromising options. Nonetheless, Özel needs to recognize that those who aspire to restore Turkish democracy no longer have any future in the CHP.
BACKGROUND:
On May 21, an appeals court in Ankara removed the head of the main opposition center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), Özgür Özel, by annulling the party’s 2023 leadership contest. The court credited the allegations that Özel’s victory was due to irregularities and misconduct and ordered that Özel should be replaced by his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, CHP’s leader between 2010 and 2023, whom he defeated in 2023. Turkish legal experts contested the legality of the court ruling, pointing out that the appeals court had overstepped its jurisdiction, since according to the Turkish constitution the Supreme Electoral Board is the sole instance invested with the authority to cancel party elections.
Yet Turkey’s justice system has been weaponised against the opposition, and the decision to depose Özel represents but the final stage in the crackdown on the CHP that began a year ago with the arrest of the party’s presidential candidate, the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu. Since then, scores of CHP mayors have been arrested, charged with corruption, while others have been enticed – or blackmailed -- to switch to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). As a result, the results of the local elections in 2024, which the CHP carried, have largely been voided.
The CHP has still continued to enjoy a lead, albeit a narrowing one, in the polls, while some have the party falling behind the AKP. Nonetheless, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seeks to make sure that his reelection isn’t endangered. Özel succeeded in keeping protesters mobilized even though a protest fatigue has eventually set in. In a sign of the growing sense of resignation, Özel’s ouster as party leader so far hasn’t elicited any wider popular protests. That’s also because the struggle over the CHP doesn’t only pit the courts of the regime against the party’s elected leadership but equally the former, now re-appointed, party head and his successor against each other, making it seem to be an internal matter of a deeply split party.
Kılıçdaroğlu has consistently refused to admit the legitimacy of the election of Özel and has since sought to return as party leader. Kılıçdaroğlu’s vengefulness and the interest of Erdoğan in seeing the main opposition party consumed with internal strife converged. On May 25, police stormed the headquarters of the CHP where Özel had barricaded himself, after Kılıçdaroğlu’s lawyers requested his and his supporters’ eviction.
Özel’s performance since the court ordered his ouster has been unsteady, alternating between defiance and futile entreaties to Kılıçdaroğlu. He initially vowed to remain at the party headquarters, solemnly declaring that “I will stay in this building, I will not leave, until the CHP’s members have decided who’s going to lead the party.” Yet two days later, when the police stormed the building, Özel acquiesced to quietly leave it.
IMPLICATIONS:
Özel was apparently caught off-guard by the decision to depose him. “I never expected that they would go this far,” he confessed, betraying a surprising naïveté about a regime that doesn’t pull any punches and that has already shown that it will stop at nothing to crush the CHP. Özel has, it seems, neither taken the full measure of Erdoğan nor of Kılıçdaroğlu, and he has clearly underestimated their determination to get rid of him.
On May 26, he appealed to Kılıçdaroğlu to call a party election in which the CHP’s 2 million members would decide who should be party leader. Kılıçdaroğlu, who was already unpopular in the party and who is now deeply loathed, will certainly not consent to holding such an election. On May 27, Özel expressed the vain hope that Kılıçdaroğlu won’t “usurp power.” Kılıçdaroğlu’s statements though intimate that he has every intention to make full use of the power that he’s been handed, and that he intends to proceed to purge the CHP of the supposedly corrupt Özel and İmamoğlu loyalists. On May 27, Kılıçdaroğlu requested that Özel be removed as CHP parliamentary group leader, a post to which Özel was hurriedly appointed after he was deposed as party leader.
Ultimately, Özel will now have to recognize that those who aspire to restore Turkish democracy no longer have any future in the CHP. So far, Özel has refused to acknowledge that reality. “We’re not going to abandon the party,” he quipped. “How could we abandon the history, the brand of the CHP to a leadership that has been appointed by the palace (a reference to the Erdoğan regime)?” he rhetorically asked. (He could also have added the party treasury that Kılıçdaroğlu now controls to that list.)
His statement suggests that Özel, incredulously, thinks that he’s got a fair chance to wrest back the party from the regime, as if the circumstances were those of a normally functioning democracy. But Özel also seems to be cognizant that normal democratic rules have ceased to apply, noting that the CHP is now “de facto closed.” In a statement that suggests that he intends to pursue his struggle by extra-parliamentary means, he said “from now on we’ll primarily be in the streets, alongside the people.” But it’s doubtful that the people will be in the streets alongside Özel.
Özel has only unpromising options: If he remains in the CHP and tries to wage a rebellion against Kılıçdaroğlu, as his statements indicate he will, he has scant chance of reversing his fortunes, and he will only end up reinforcing the image of a chaotic party that is at war with itself, which will disqualify it as a viable alternative in the eyes of many voters. That is precisely what Erdoğan wants. If on the other hand, Özel opts to leave the CHP and starts a new party, he’ll also face insurmountable, not least financial, obstacles. “We are not going to start any new party,” he insisted on May 27. Yet he may ultimately have no other option -- however unpromising it is -- if he wants to remain politically relevant.
Nor can Özel realistically hope to achieve anything by taking to the streets, as he ostentatiously did after he had complied with the police order to leave the party headquarters. Özel led party loyalists in an eight kilometer walk to the parliament under pouring rain, at one occasion climbing over an armored police vehicle and defiantly posing with a clenched fist. While some opposition commentators touted that image – reminiscent of Boris Yeltsin’s famous climb on a tank during the coup attempt in Moscow 1991 -- as iconic and held that it “captured the moment of revolutionary crystallization,” Turkey is hardly on the brink of a revolution, something of which it has no tradition. Although dissatisfaction with the economy is widespread, a majority of the voters appreciate Erdoğan’s leadership in a time of unprecedented international turmoil while the détente with the Kurdish political movement ensures that no broad opposition alliance will emerge to challenge the regime.
CONCLUSION:
In a statement in 2024, after the CHP had defeated the AKP in the local elections, Özgür Özel commented that Turkey’s history shows that whenever the state and the people are in a contest, the people always wins. There’s some truth to that. The CHP, then the party of the state, lost in Turkey’s first free elections in 1950. In 1983, the voters rejected the party that the military junta had set up as its successor. In 2007, they rallied massively to the AKP after the military had tried to block the election of the AKP’s presidential candidate. But the people’s victories have also been voided before.
In the late 1970s, the CHP’s rule was subverted by the state and big business. The CHP had by then reinvented itself as the party of the popular masses and the downtrodden and won its biggest electoral victory to date. The CHP was subsequently closed by the military together with all other parties after the coup in 1980.
The Erdoğan regime has now introduced an innovation to the longstanding Turkish state tradition of party closures – a procedure that has historically primarily targeted Islamist and Kurdish parties – by appointing a trustee to lead the party that threatened to upend the established order.
The deeper lesson that Turkey’s history imparts is that the state can only be challenged successfully from the right. The state resisted the ascent of the Islamic conservative AKP but ultimately yielded; but the AKP that rose to power as the agent of the people against the state elite in turn eventually morphed into the party of the state. The enduring fate of the CHP, which has made the opposite journey, is instead to be neutralized by the state when it’s on the ascent.
AUTHOR'S BIO:
Halil Karaveli is a Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center and Editor of the Turkey Analyst. He is the author of Why Turkey is Authoritarian: From Atatürk to Erdoğan (Pluto Press).
By Barçın Yinanç
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is known to be a leader who does not chew his words, especially when targeting Western leaders. Yet although an overwhelming majority of the Turkish public opinion is strongly critical of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, Erdoğan has conspicuously withheld any criticism of Washington. The Turkish leadership has offered invaluable assistance to Trump’s plans for Gaza, and Washington has accommodated Turkey in Syria and tacitly bestowed legitimacy on Erdoğan’s domestic oppression. However, the central challenge for U.S.–Turkey relations will remain the management of tensions between two of Washington’s most important Middle Eastern allies, Israel and Turkey.
BACKGROUND:
Trump and Erdoğan had already set up a good rapport during Trump’s first term, and U.S. president’s favorable view of Erdoğan facilitates addressing long-standing strains in bilateral ties. Yet it was the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria 2024 that proved to be the real game-changer in the American-Turkish relation. Trump’s decision early on to open credit to Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Shara, the former jihadist rebel leader and a Turkish protégé, led to a constructive cooperation on a key priority area for Ankara. More importantly, Washington’s change of strategy concerning the People’s Protection Units (YPG), considered by Ankara to be the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), proved to be the key dynamic as a course correction.
U.S. political and military support to the YPG poisoned Turkish-American relations for more than a decade. Washington claimed to partner with the YPG to fight the so called Islamic State while Ankara accused its ally of backing a Kurdish armed group, thereby paving the way for the establishment of a Kurdish entity in its southern border. In January this year, Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Ankara and Trump’s special envoy to Syria, announced YPG’s mission to be accomplished, removing the major obstacle to improved U.S.-Turkey relations. “The original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps,” he stated.
Speaking during the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on April 17, Barrack praised Turkey and Erdoğan and appeared to be siding with Turkey – and Syria -- against Israel. Barrack took issue with Israel’s view of Syria and Turkey as adversaries, rather than potential partners, calling it a “strategic mistake.” Israel deployed troops to southern Syria in the wake of Assad’s ouster, and has bombed military facilities in the country. Barrack lamented the constant Israeli incursions that threaten to destabilize the al-Sharaa regime and clash with Turkey’s interests. Israeli representatives have also repeatedly expressed support for Kurdish aspirations, raising concerns in Ankara. Barrack said that he’s been consistent in telling Israel that the “inclusion” of Turkey is the “only answer” to securing the ceasefire in Gaza.
While Trump prioritizes the security of Israel, bringing stability in the Middle East requires the normalization of Israel’s relations with its neighbors. Achieving this, however, necessitates managing, if not resolving comprehensively, the Palestinian issue. In that respect, Turkey plays a crucial role and has already offered valuable services. As the most vocal critic of Israel and a staunch defender of Hamas, Erdoğan’s endorsement of the plan that foresaw the end of Hamas’ rule in Gaza was invaluable and bestowed legitimacy to Trump’s plan. Not only did Erdoğan sign on to Trump’s plan, becoming one of the four leaders signing a declaration in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, but he also used Turkey’s leverage over Hamas. If Trump was instrumental in convincing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the plan, Turkey’s pressure was crucial in securing Hamas’ acquiescence.
Barrack recalled that Trump called Erdoğan shortly before the ceasefire in Gaza was reached last October, asking for his assistance in bringing two leaders of Hamas on board. It would not have happened without the efforts of Erdoğan, Fidan and National Intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, Barrack emphasized.
IMPLICATIONS:
It is not a coincidence that, Erdoğan – who never received an invitation during Joe Biden’s term – was finally gratified with an invitation to and entered the Oval Office two days after he endorsed Trump’s plans for Gaza. Meanwhile, a statement by ambassador Barrack right before Erdoğan’s visit laid down openly the gist of U.S.-Turkish relations, with Barrack remarking that “President Trump says, let’s give them what they need, legitimacy.” The statement, which presumably alluded to the need to rehabilitate Erdoğan’s image in Washington, also implied turning a blind eye to and legitimizing Erdoğan’s domestic transgressions. Washington has remained silent as Turkey has been witnessing one of the most severe waves of political repression in its history, targeting the main opposition party.
Meanwhile, the Turkish leadership provides legitimacy to Trump’s plans for the Middle East. Turkey’s decision to use its leverage over Hamas has in return been rewarded by the U.S. Not only has Washington ended its decade-long support to the Kurdish YPG, but the Trump administration has also green-lighted a solution to the longstanding Halkbank issue between the U.S. and Turkey. The agreement over Turkish state-owned Halkbank, which stands accused of evading U.S. sanctions on Iran, was revealed in early March. Not coincidentally, Turkish officials abstained from expressing any criticism of the U.S. for the war against Iran. This also bespeaks Ankara’s wish to mediate between Washington and Tehran and Turkey contributed to the mediation efforts that were led by Pakistan together with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the Iran war has revealed Turkish defense vulnerabilities. The package deal with the U.S. that includes modernization kits for Turkey’s existing F-16 fleet as well as the procurement of a new batch of F-16s comes at a high cost, and Ankara seeks a discounted offer. Also, there has been no progress on the F-35 issue, with Ankara blaming the Israeli lobby for the stalemate. Turkey is eager to be allowed to return to the program from which it was expelled following its purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system.
Delays in the delivery of the initial engines for Turkey’s domestically produced fighter jet Kaan have further heightened concerns in Ankara. These setbacks exacerbate Turkey’s growing airpower vulnerability at a moment when global politics is increasingly unstable and unpredictable.
CONCLUSION:
It was consistent with President Trump’s leadership style to disengage from an armed non-state actor – the Kurds in Syria -- and instead rely on a middle power like Turkey, particularly as Washington seeks to delegate the stabilization of key regions to allies and partners. In the short to medium term, however, the central challenge for U.S.–Turkey relations will remain the management of tensions between two of Washington’s most important Middle Eastern allies, Israel and Turkey.
Turkey and Israel pursue fundamentally divergent policies in Syria, as the latter wants a weak and fragmented Syria. At present, Ankara appears to have drawn Washington closer to its own position. However, the fragile nature of the deal between Damascus and YPG as well as that between Syria and Israel remains a potential irritant. This is also important in view of the new process initiated to solve the decades old Kurdish problem.
Moreover, Israel’s approach to implementing the second stage of Trump’s Gaza plan is highly problematic. Turkey has reciprocated U.S. disengagement from the Kurdish YPG by encouraging Hamas to accept a framework that remains ambiguous about the protection of Palestinian rights. Ankara though will find it difficult to pressure Hamas to remain loyal to the plan in the face of Israel’s policies in Gaza and in the West Bank. Israel’s quest for regional supremacy threatens to impede Erdoğan’s collaboration with Trump.
And if Trump meant to improve Erdoğan’s standing among Washington’s circles by bestowing legitimacy on him, this remains unfulfilled as Congress is still highly hostile to Turkey, which explains the continuation of the stalemate in defense ties.
AUTHOR'S BIO:
Barçın Yinanç is a foreign policy commentator at the Turkish news site t24.
Earlier Articles
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Joint Center PublicationsOp-ed Halil Karaveli "The Rise and Rise of the Turkish Right", The New York Times, April 8, 2019 Analysis Halil Karaveli "The Myth of Erdogan's Power", Foreign Policy, August 29, 2018 Analysis Svante E. Cornell, A Road to Understanding in Syria? The U.S. and Turkey, The American Interest, June 2018 Op-ed Halil Karaveli "Erdogan Wins Reelection", Foreign Affairs, June 25, 2018 Article Halil Karaveli "Will the Kurdish Question Secure Erdogan's Re-election?", Turkey Analyst, June 18, 2018 Research Article Svante E. Cornell "Erbakan, Kisakürek, and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey", Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018 Analysis Svante E. Cornell "The U.S. and Turkey: Past the Point of No Return?", The American Interest, February 1, 2018 Op-ed Svante E. Cornell "Erdogan's Turkey: the Role of a Little Known Islamic Poet", Breaking Defense, January 2, 2018 Research Article Halil Karaveli "Turkey's Authoritarian Legacy", Cairo Review of Global Affairs, January 2, 2018
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