The Levant Files

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Turkey Deepens Its Foothold in Iraq as Iran’s Regional Influence Weakens

Turkey is accelerating its economic and energy expansion into Iraq, capitalising on Iran’s weakened regional position and the disruption of oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz. According to an August 9 report by Al-Monitor , Ankara and Baghdad are moving beyond their traditional relationship based on oil transit, developing broader cooperation in energy production, infrastructure and regional connectivity. Turkey has acquired a direct stake in major Kirkuk oil fields, reserved additional pipeline capacity for Iraqi crude and renewed its push for the Development Road linking the Gulf with Europe. The agreements were announced following Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s first official visit to Ankara. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said the objective was to take bilateral relations “to a new level,” with energy and infrastructure forming the partnership’s core. In one of the most significant developments, Turkey’s state-owned TPAO acquired a 15% stake in BP Energy Com...

This is Tehran’s Reaction to the Mecca Pact: The Aggreement Raises Fears Iran Could Be Sidelined in a New Regional Order

Iranian commentary views the new Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan as evidence that Middle Eastern states are finally embracing a principle Tehran has promoted for decades: regional security should be provided primarily by regional countries. Yet the same initiative could leave Iran outside the emerging architecture and limit its economic, security and diplomatic options. According to an analysis published by Ham-Mihan Online, citing Iran’s ISNA news agency, the agreement should not be understood merely as a military pact among three countries. Rather, it offers a glimpse of a multilayered regional order in which governments continue cooperating with the United States while building additional security partnerships of their own. The pact reportedly declares that an armed attack against any one of its three signatories will be regarded as an attack against all of them. It also calls for stronger defence cooperation, joint deterrence, collaboration b...

تكتسب الخطابية المعادية لليونان أرضاً في الإعلام التركي مع عودة التوترات في بحر إيجة

أصبحت الصور السلبية لليونان أكثر بروزاً في أجزاء من الإعلام التركي خلال الأسابيع الماضية، حيث تُصوَّر أثينا في كثير من الأحيان على أنها استفزازية، وعسكرياً هشة، ومذعورة بشدة من تزايد القوة الإقليمية لتركيا. كشف تحقيق خاص لـ The Levant Files، للفترة من 12 يوليو إلى 9 أغسطس، أن هذا التحول واضح بشكل خاص في الصحف المؤيدة للحكومة، وشبكات التلفزيون، والمنصات الإعلامية ذات التوجه الدفاعي. ورغم أن ذلك لا يمثل حملة موحدة عبر المشهد الإعلامي التركي بأكمله، فإن تكرار العناوين والمواضيع المشابهة يشير إلى تصلب واضح في السرد المحيط باليونان. أصبح هذا الاتجاه بارزاً بشكل خاص بعد 20 يوليو، عندما أشار وزير الدفاع اليوناني نيكوس ديندياس، بمناسبة الذكرى السنوية للتدخل العسكري التركي في قبرص عام 1974، إلى أن "قبرص قريبة" بالنسبة للقوات المسلحة اليونانية. وصفت قناة A Haber تصريحاته بأنها "استفزاز متعجرف"، وقالت إن ديندياس قد "تجاوز الحد". وعادت القناة إلى البيان بعد يومين، وقدمته كمثال آخر على استهداف اليونان المباشر لتركيا. الموضوع الثاني المتكرر هو أن اليونان تخشى من توسع ال...

TLF INVESTIGATION: Anti-Greek Rhetoric Gains Ground in Turkish Media as Aegean Tensions Resurface

Negative portrayals of Greece have become increasingly prominent in parts of the Turkish media over the past weeks, with Athens frequently depicted as provocative, militarily vulnerable and deeply alarmed by Turkey’s growing regional power. A special investigation of The Levant Files, for the period of July 12 and August 9, shows that the shift is particularly visible in pro-government newspapers, television networks and defence-oriented outlets. Although it does not amount to a uniform campaign across the entire Turkish media landscape, the recurrence of similar headlines and themes points to a discernible hardening of the narrative surrounding Greece. The trend became especially pronounced after July 20, when Greek Defence Minister Nikos Dendias marked the anniversary of Turkey’s 1974 military intervention in Cyprus by declaring that “Cyprus is close” for the Greek armed forces. A Haber described his remarks⁠ as an “arrogant provocation” and said that Dendias had “overstepped the mar...

Tehran Raises the Price of Hormuz

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council sets six conditions for reopening the strait — hours after its own diplomats declared the Oman framework complete. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council declared on Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the United States “corrects its behaviour,” and attached a six-item price list to that correction. The message, issued by council secretary Mohammad-Bagher Zolghadr and timed to Iran’s Journalist’s Day, was distributed through the government information portal and the state broadcaster, and was carried within the hour by Mehr, Tasnim, Shafaqna and Tabnak. The conditions: that Washington never threaten Iran or insult the nation’s sanctities; that it permanently end its war against Iran and Iranian allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq; that it lift the naval blockade and withdraw its naval and air forces from Iran’s periphery; that it pay in full for the damage of two wars; that it remove sanctions; and that it release...

Yemen's Four-Year Calm Breaks: Deadliest Exchanges Since 2022 Push the War Back Toward the Open

Houthi missile and drone salvos on Marib and Hadramawt, a Yemeni army counter-operation across multiple fronts, and a maritime campaign that has emptied Bab al-Mandeb have left the UN warning of the highest escalation risk since the April 2022 truce Yemen's internationally recognised army announced on Saturday that it had struck Houthi positions along several fronts, closing a seventy-two-hour cycle of violence that has effectively dismantled the de facto truce which has held inside the country since April 2022. The announcement, carried by the Defence Ministry and attributed to army spokesman Col. Majid al-Nuzaili, was framed as retaliation for missile and drone attacks on military camps in the governorates of Marib and Hadramawt. The army gave no operational detail and did not say when the strikes took place. It said it would meet any further targeting of its units with what it called necessary military measures, and warned that it would respond without hesitation if...

TLF EXCLUSIVE: Athens Puts Its Saudi Patriots on a Month-to-Month Clock as Ankara Wins the Gulf. The Cypriot Angle

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement has collapsed a decade of Greek Gulf strategy into a single question: what is a Greek missile battery doing in a country that is now treaty-bound to Turkey? Twenty-four hours after Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mohammed bin Salman and Shehbaz Sharif signed a mutual-defence pact in Mecca, Athens quietly changed the terms on which it keeps a Patriot battery inside Saudi Arabia. The deployment of the Hellenic Force in Saudi Arabia (ELDYSA), a Hellenic Air Force Patriot battery stationed at Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, will no longer be renewed on an annual basis. It will now be reviewed month by month, according to Greek defence ministry sources cited by Kathimerini and OnAlert.gr. The Saudi embassy in Athens has been informed. Greek officials are careful to insist this is not a reaction. The proposal for rolling monthly reassessment was made last March by Defence Minister Nikos Dendias, they say, in full coordination with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis a...

Foreigners at the Gate: Tehran Rushes the Caspian Treaty Through Parliament, Days Before Its Own Summit

Iran’s most senior legal diplomat has given the clearest official explanation yet of why Tehran, after eight years of deliberate delay, suddenly wants parliament to ratify the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. The reason, in his account, is that the world’s largest landlocked body of water is no longer closed. In an interview with the state news agency IRNA, republished by the Tehran news site Entekhab, Kazem Gharibabadi, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, said the security environment around the Caspian over the past year or two bears no comparison to what came before — and that, as a result of decisions taken by some littoral states, “foreigners are gaining a foothold in the Caspian region.” He did not name the states. He did not have to. The Bill, and the Clock The sequence has been unusually fast by Iranian standards. President Masoud Pezeshkian’s cabinet approved the ratification bill on 22 July under an expedited procedure and sent it to...