The Levant Files

Israel is increasingly alarmed by Egypt’s accelerating military build‑up and its fast‑warming relationship with Turkey, developments that Israeli officials and analysts warn could reshape the strategic balance across the Eastern Mediterranean and around Gaza.   For decades, the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty has been a cornerstone of Israel’s regional security, effectively neutralising the largest Arab army on its southern flank. But recent Egyptian arms purchases, expanded deployments in Sinai and Cairo’s defence outreach to Ankara are fuelling doubts in Jerusalem about how stable that equation will be in the long term.   In a rare public warning ... *  The Levant Files is dedicated to delivering in‑depth, context‑rich reporting on the shifting geopolitics of our region. Our latest analysis, examining Israel’s growing unease over Egypt’s military build‑up and Cairo’s deepening ties with Ankara, exemplifies the kind of work we strive to produce consistently and ...

  by  Kaan Devecioğlu  The diplomatic normalization process between Türkiye and Egypt, which has regained momentum over the past two years, appears to have acquired an institutional and strategic framework with the second meeting of the Türkiye-Egypt High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council held in Cairo on Feb. 4. Statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at their joint news conference suggest that relations have entered a new phase, not only bilaterally but also within the broader regional geopolitical context. The most striking aspect of the meeting was the clear intention to move beyond “normalization” and recast relations within a “multidimensional strategic partnership.” Coupled with an emphasis on deeper cooperation in the economy, energy, transportation and cultural fields, and growing diplomatic coordination on crises such as Gaza, Libya, Sudan and Somalia, this shift suggests that the Ankara-Cairo axi...

As the Republic of Cyprus assumes the EU Council Presidency for the first half of 2026, Ankara is raising serious alarms over a technical process that could fundamentally alter the island’s status quo. Beyond the exhausted diplomatic rhetoric of federation and reunification, Cyprus is accelerating its accession to the Schengen Area, with full integration targeted for late 2026 or early 2027. This development threatens to transform the Green Line—the porous, pragmatic divide separating the island’s two communities—into a rigid, biometrically controlled external border of the European Union. Such a shift would not merely tighten security; it risks institutionalizing the island’s de facto division by replacing decades of "soft border" reality with the binary, uncompromising logic of Schengen’s security architecture. In an analysis published on 06 February in the YetkinReport site, author Mehmet Öğütçü argues that this is no longer speculative fiction but a concrete, calendar-bou...

Turkey's relationship with the European Union has long been defined by cycles of cautious optimism followed by stagnation. The recent visit of EU Commissioner Kos to Ankara reignited familiar rhetoric about modernizing the Customs Union, deepening security cooperation, and easing visa restrictions for Turkish citizens. On the surface, the visit appeared to signal a genuine thaw—aligning with the Turkish government's declared pivot toward Brussels and the Turkish business community's open letter published in the Financial Times, arguing that in the new era of global imbalance, the EU needs Turkey more than ever. Yet beneath the diplomatic pleasantries, the structural impediments to any meaningful progress remain firmly in place, and chief among them is the unresolved Cyprus problem. As Murat Yetkin writes for YetkinReport, Commissioner Kos's visit was interpreted as a response both to the Turkish government's recent overtures toward the EU and to the business communi...

Kudüs adeta açık bir isyan hâlinde. Başbakan Binyamin Netanyahu’nun âcil bir zirve için Washington’a doğru yola çıkmasıyla birlikte, İsrailli savunma yetkilileri eşi benzeri görülmemiş bir ültimatom vermiş durumda: Yahudi Devleti, Amerikan taahhütlerine olan tüm güvenini kaybetmiş durumda ve İran’ı tek başına bombalamaya hazır; on yıllara yayılan stratejik koordinasyonu bir kenara bırakarak, Kudüs’ün Trump yönetiminden gelebilecek bir “ihanet” olarak gördüğü durumu engellemek için harekete geçmeye hazırlanıyor. Trump–Netanyahu görüşmesi, yetkililerin “varoluşsal bir hesaplaşma anı” diye nitelediği bu olağanüstü buluşma, Kudüs’ten gelen sarsıcı uyarıların ardından gerçekleşiyor. İsrailli yetkililer, Beyaz Saray’ın kozmetik askerî hamleler ve diplomatik yatıştırma yoluyla İsrail’in güvenliğini feda etmeye hazırlandığı konusunda uyarılarda bulunuyor. The Jerusalem Post’ta (8 Şubat) yer alan, güvenlik kaynaklarına dayalı yeni bir habere göre, İsrailli savunma yetkilileri son haftalarda Ame...

Jerusalem is in open revolt. With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu racing to Washington for an emergency summit, Israeli defense officials have issued an unprecedented ultimatum: the Jewish State has lost all confidence in American commitments and stands ready to bomb Iran alone, abandoning decades of strategic coordination to prevent what Jerusalem views as an impending betrayal by the Trump administration. The extraordinary Trump-Netanyahu meeting, framed by officials as a moment of existential reckoning, follows shocking warnings from Jerusalem that the White House is preparing to sacrifice Israel's security through cosmetic military gestures and diplomatic appeasement. Security sources cited by The Jerusalem Post (February 8) revealed that Israeli defense officials recently delivered a stark message to their US counterparts: "We told the Americans we will strike alone if Iran crosses the red line we set on ballistic missiles." This is not mere posturing. The breakdow...

A rare firsthand account emerging from the Islamic Republic depicts a nation psychologically fractured by economic collapse and state violence, where citizens are reportedly burying their dead in private gardens to avoid government retribution and whispering in cafés about the possibility of U.S. military strikes to end their "47 years of captivity." Published by the  Haaretz, a diary From Inside Iran offers an unprecedented window into Iranian society following the violent suppression of nationwide protests in early January. The anonymous diarist, writing from an undisclosed urban location, describes a psychological landscape dominated by "collective rage" and a paradoxical dread that Washington might choose diplomacy over confrontation with a regime now viewed by many citizens as irredeemable. The testimony, published Wednesday, chronicles the aftermath of demonstrations that began January 8, when thousands defied security warnings to flood streets in Tehran, Shir...

As diplomatic efforts to revive the nuclear agreement continue to falter, Iranian officials and state media are increasingly vocal in their contempt for the European Union’s role, openly accusing Brussels and Paris of negotiating in bad faith and acting as instruments of American pressure rather than honest mediators. Far from concealing its skepticism, Tehran is framing the EU’s recent diplomatic overtures as cynical attempts to mask a destabilizing agenda that aligns with Washington and Tel Aviv. Nournews, an outlet with close ties to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, captured this sentiment in a scathing editorial. The commentary reflects a hardening consensus within Iranian policy circles that European powers, particularly France, have abandoned any pretense of neutrality, instead functioning as “crisis-makers” whose interventions exacerbate regional instability. The analysis highlights what Tehran describes as Paris’s “duplicitous nature,” alleging that while French diplom...

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