by Murat Yetkin
Yesterday, on December 22, while Ankara was essentially launching a diplomatic blitz on the SDF issue in Damascus, Israel formed an anti-Turkey alliance with the governments of Greece and Southern Cyprus. As Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler, and Intelligence Chief İbrahim Kalın met with President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus alongside new Turkish Ambassador Nuh Yılmaz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hosting Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Greek Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in Jerusalem.
It's worth noting that these three countries are the most uncomfortable with "Terror-Free Turkey"—the project aimed at finding a political solution to Turkey's Kurdish issue in Parliament through PKK disarmament.
While Fidan, at a joint press conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, stated that the SDF conducting its operations "in coordination" with Israel constituted the biggest obstacle to the March 10 agreement with the Damascus government, Netanyahu announced alongside the Greek and Greek Cypriot leaders that "This tenth trilateral meeting is the most important in terms of its outcomes." When asked at the trilateral press conference whether the alliance was against Turkey, Netanyahu's response—"We don't want to antagonize anyone"—was diplomatic code for "Yes."
Reviving the IMEC Project
This meeting was planned immediately after Israeli Air Force Commander Tomer Bar's meeting with Greek Cypriot and Greek military delegations on the island, which came to light last week. Prior to this, it was already known that Israel had established missile bases against Turkey in Southern Cyprus in September and was planning to establish an air base there.
The Exclusive Economic Zone agreement signed between Southern Cyprus and Lebanon on November 26 aims both to block Turkey's and the TRNC's interests in the Eastern Mediterranean—thanks to 1 billion euros to be transferred from the European Union—and to draw Lebanon closer to Israel's sphere of influence.
Cyprus is important to Israel from another perspective as well. Netanyahu openly states that he wants to revive the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) project, which was shelved during the Gaza terror campaign he launched after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack. The island of Cyprus holds a strategic position for the Mediterranean crossing of this extremely expensive and risky project, which envisions connecting India to the Arabian Peninsula via an undersea tunnel, and from there to Israel and Greece. In other words, Israel's military presence in Cyprus is also important for implementing this project, from which Turkey is excluded.
Israel, Turkey, Syria, SDF
The cheapest and most practical alternative to IMEC is the project to connect the Persian Gulf to both Europe and Central Asia through Iraqi and Turkish territory alone, via Iraq's Development Road project, which Turkey also supports. The biggest obstacles to this project are Iranian influence on one hand and the security threat the PKK could pose on the other.
Regional supply security is also a byproduct of "Terror-Free Turkey," or the project for a political solution to the Kurdish issue through PKK disarmament.
Israel has been continuously expanding its attacks and sphere of influence since October 7, 2023.
In pursuit of this goal, having pushed Iran out of the Syrian and Lebanese arena and back to its own defense, Turkey is now Israel's only regional adversary.
The biggest obstacle to the Terror-Free Turkey project is the SDF. The SDF began to backtrack from the agreement it reached with Damascus on March 10—just a few days after PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's February 27 call—following Israel's message of "Resist, we're behind you" while supporting the Druze uprising in July.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army expanded its occupation operations in Syria and positioned itself within artillery range of Damascus.
The Gaza and SDF Connection
It is no coincidence that Fidan stated at the press conference that Turkey stands with Syria against Israel's political-military pressure.
It is also no coincidence that al-Shaibani emphasized at the press conference that they had not seen much "intention to progress" from the SDF regarding compliance with the March 10 agreement. The agreement's terms were supposed to be fulfilled by December 31; about a week remains.
Likewise, it is no coincidence that just before Ankara's diplomatic blitz on the SDF issue in Damascus, Defense Minister Güler announced that Turkey had provided intelligence to Iran about the PKK's armed force transfer from Iraq to Iran during the Israel-Iran war in June.
In this process, the US has expectations from Turkey regarding Gaza. Following US Ambassador to Ankara Tom Barrack's contacts in Ankara on December 16, Intelligence Chief Kalın met with Hamas officials in Istanbul, while Foreign Minister Fidan met with his counterparts from the two other mediators—Egypt and Qatar—as well as US officials in Miami.
Will Turkey always be the giving party?
Meanwhile, it is certainly no coincidence that the Greek Cypriot government will assume the EU rotating presidency for six months starting January 1.
While hypocrisy continues in Turkey-EU relations, a dangerous game is escalating in the Eastern Mediterranean.
* Since the writer in the original text mentions the Republic of Cyprus as Southern Cyprus we choose to translate the term in this way. This article was first published on 23 December 2025 in the Yetkin Report. The opinions expressed in this translated or hosted article do not necessarily reflect the views or editorial positions of TLF.
Photo: Yetkin Report