Iran conflict: Why Turkey is walking a tightrope between Nato and Tehran

The region is on edge. While headlines are dominated by the latest military strikes and the frantic diplomatic manoeuvring between Washington and Tehran, it’s worth looking at a player who, in this tinderbox, has a crucial but often underestimated role: Turkey. Here on the Bosphorus sits a Nato partner that publicly appeals for peace, but behind the scenes is playing a high-risk game. It’s a tightrope walk between alliance loyalty and sheer terror at the consequences of a war with Iran.

The Erdoğan dilemma: Helping the mullahs to save itself

You don't need to be a clairvoyant to see that Ankara is in a tight spot. Officially, President Erdoğan talks about de-escalation and warns of a regional inferno. But in back rooms, as they tell it in the tea houses of Istanbul, the picture is quite different. Turkey is grappling with a simple but existential problem: the collapse of Iran. If the ayatollahs fell, we wouldn't just have another failed state on its doorstep. No, the equation would be far more complex.

Let's picture the scenario: a power vacuum in Tehran. Borders as porous as Swiss cheese. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, would push west. Turkey, which has already had to absorb three million Syrians, would finally collapse. The mood in the country is already at boiling point. No politician in Ankara can afford a second refugee wave – it would be political suicide for any government. There are even leaked plans to establish, if necessary, a buffer zone on the Iranian side to stem the tide. It sounds like an extreme scenario, but it's long been marked on military maps.

The ghost of Kandil and the fear of the Kurdish card

And then there's the terror issue. For the Turkish leadership, the biggest threat isn't an Israeli retaliatory strike or American aircraft carriers, but one name: PJAK. The Iranian offshoot of the PKK, which plies its trade in the border mountains, would be the main beneficiary of chaos in Iran. If Tehran falls, the separatists gain momentum. An independent Kurdish area in northern Iraq and Syria – that's bad enough for Ankara. But an Iranian offshoot then possibly declaring its own autonomous zone? That would be the ultimate disaster for Turkey's national security.

That's precisely why, in recent weeks, the Turkish intelligence service, the MIT, has been working more closely than ever with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. There have been indications that Ankara specifically warned Tehran about PKK fighters trying to infiltrate from Iraq. Just imagine: a Nato member feeding real-time information to a regime that Nato and Israel deem the region's biggest threat. That's the reality of the 'Orient Express' – a region where the tracks don't always lead where the alliance timetables suggest they should.

Business with the rival: Gas, gold, and a narrow line

Of course, money talks, too. As much as Erdoğan and the mullahs are ideological foes – in the Syrian civil war they were on opposite sides – they are just as much economically chained to each other. Turkey imports a significant portion of its gas from Iran. If the pipelines were cut, the energy crisis here would be complete. Industry would grind to a halt, and the inflation we've only just got under control would explode again.

Then there are the black-market channels. Turkish companies' names keep cropping up on the US Treasury's sanctions lists. It's about gold deals, currency transfers, evading embargoes. Part of the Iranian economy, especially the Revolutionary Guards' network, only breathes because it can keep the financial taps running through Istanbul. Erdoğan allows this because it gives him leverage. He can turn off the tap – and sometimes does, as shown by a decree last autumn to comply with UN sanctions. It's a constant give and take, a cat-and-mouse game that's almost impossible for outsiders to fathom.

Between all stools: What remains of sovereignty?

The question remains: how long can this go on? Turkey is caught between a rock and a hard place.

• Strategically: It relies on Nato's security architecture, but exploits every weakness in the alliance for its own power plays.
• Economically: It needs trade with Iran, but can't afford to permanently alienate Washington.
• Humanitarily: It hosts Iranian dissidents without extraditing them, while simultaneously suppressing their protests at home to avoid provoking the mullahs.

In the end, I fear, this war will have no winners. If the US and Israel really do topple the regime in Tehran, Turkey will be left with a heap of rubble on its eastern border. But if Iran holds firm, Ankara's duplicity will have made it suspect in everyone's eyes. The ride on the Orient Express was never comfortable – but this current journey feels like a wild rollercoaster ride with no brakes. And we're all on board.