Diplomacy becomes essential national security tool to combat Turkey's growing strength- editorial

Four days later, Israel struck Abu al-Duhur, saying Damascus was nearing a breach of what Israel described as an agreed security status quo by allowing Turkish forces to deploy there.

Consider what that means, as the stakes are higher than another Syrian strike. The head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service reportedly spoke directly with the foreign minister of Syria, a country with which Israel still has no peace treaty and remains technically at war, because of concerns over Turkey.

Turkey is not simply another regional critic of Israel – it is a NATO member with growing influence over Syria’s new government. Ankara and Damascus signed a military cooperation memorandum last year, covering military training and consultancy, as well as Turkish support involving weapons systems, military equipment and logistics. Turkey has trained Syrian personnel, and Turkish officers were acknowledged to have visited Abu al-Duhur before this week’s strike. Damascus denies that any Turkish base or permanent deployment was planned, while Ankara has rejected Israel’s allegations about its military posture in Syria.

The disputed details matter, yet the broader trajectory is clear: Ankara wants the privileges of a Western alliance while increasingly behaving toward Israel as a strategic adversary.

Turkey spent the Syrian civil war backing opposition factions and building a military footprint across the north. In spring 2025, Turkish teams examined Syrian facilities including T4 (Tiyas) airbase, Palmyra airbase, and Hama military airport for possible military use. Israel then struck several of those sites. The episode was followed by Israel-Turkey deconfliction talks in Azerbaijan, designed to prevent their forces from stumbling into a direct clash.

Since then, Erdogan has repeatedly rejected describing Hamas as a terrorist organization, instead calling it a “liberation group”; Israel recalled its diplomats from Turkey, and Ankara subsequently recalled its ambassador from Israel; and Turkey halted bilateral trade with Israel. Erdogan’s rhetoric has also sharply escalated, including comparing Netanyahu to Hitler and suggesting in 2024 that Turkey could intervene against Israel as it had in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Syria now gives that hostility a military geography.

For nearly three years, Israel has been forced to think about security across several fronts from Gaza to Lebanon and Iran. The emergence of a powerful Turkish military presence in Syria under an increasingly antagonistic government in Ankara would create a fundamentally different challenge: Turkish radar, air-defense systems, aircraft, or drones could restrict Israel’s freedom of action and turn an already volatile northern arena into one involving the armed forces of a NATO state.

Washington evidently understands the danger. US envoy Tom Barrack has said the United States is working on a three-way deconfliction mechanism among Israel, Turkey, and Syria after the Abu al-Duhur strike risked an unintended confrontation. Inadequate military communication between Israel and NATO member Turkey could produce exactly the kind of clash Barrack has warned about.

It also raises an uncomfortable question about the US-supervised “joint fusion mechanism” that Israel, Syria, and the United States agreed in January to establish for intelligence sharing and military de-escalation. Whatever it accomplished, it was clearly not sufficient to prevent this week’s events.

The answer, however, cannot be less dialogue. It must be more.

Syria remains uncertain, and Israel has every reason to distrust the intentions and durability of its new rulers. Yet President Ahmed al-Sharaa said last month that Syria was seeking a security agreement with Israel, and Shaibani has maintained that Damascus remains open to negotiations even after the strike. That is extraordinary and worth testing.