The OSCE Model Could Offer the Middle East a Way Out

Ambassador (Ret.) Ersin Erçin

The same promise follows every military operation in the Middle East: this time, the threat will be eliminated, security restored and the way to peace opened. Yet as the number of targets struck increases, the end of these wars is postponed indefinitely. From Gaza to Lebanon, and from Syria to Iran, the conflicts are heightening the risk that the region will become a place where states seek security by continually attacking one another.

Netanyahu’s address to the UN General Assembly on 24 September deepened these concerns. The Israeli prime minister defended the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities as essential to his country’s survival. He stressed that Israel had been fighting on seven fronts for three years. He also described the political and media struggle as an eighth front, taking aim at Türkiye and Qatar.

Behind this rhetoric lies a dangerous admission: that security can be preserved only through continued confrontation. Who, then, will determine the conditions under which that confrontation can end? If every victory becomes the justification for the next operation, how can Israel’s military supremacy, which pursues regional hegemony in the name of security, bring peace to the region?

The right to live in security belongs not only to Israelis, but also to Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Iranians. No country can build its security on a situation in which everyone around it feels permanently threatened.

Israel’s establishment is justified by reference to the antisemitism of the time in Europe and the Holocaust. Yet today’s conflicts cannot be explained while ignoring the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 and the occupation that deepened after 1967. Telling only one side of this history cannot extinguish the rights of the other.

At the UN podium, Netanyahu invoked the time of Moses and religious scripture to legitimise the Jewish presence in the Golan Heights. He argued that the conflict was not about territory, but about the refusal to accept a Jewish state within any borders. Religious texts, however, have no legal standing in determining the rights and borders of other states. In this context, the International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion, which found Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful, is particularly significant.

President Erdoğan’s criticism of Israel in his UN address on 22 September is also relevant here. Describing the destruction in Gaza as genocide and state terrorism, Erdoğan presented settler violence in the West Bank, restrictions on access to holy sites in Jerusalem and pressure on UNRWA, which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees, as parts of the same picture.

These criticisms point to the considerable distance between declaring a ceasefire and establishing peace. Periodic silences of the guns cannot deliver a lasting settlement while occupation and the pressure of settlement expansion continue.

Erdoğan’s objection to impunity matters for the same reason. Diplomacy that merely condemns violations, without bringing sufficient pressure to bear to stop them, cannot prevent further attacks.

The subtitle of Israeli commentator Amos Harel’s article in Foreign Affairs warns that Netanyahu’s doctrine may outlive him. That possibility takes the issue beyond the calculations of a corrupt politician and war criminal seeking to remain in power. For Israel’s own future, the central question is not simply how to win a war, but what political outcome will bring it to an end. Iran illustrates this dilemma. A nuclear facility can be severely damaged. Missile launchers and command centres can be destroyed. But none of this resolves the question of why the other side is arming itself. A government that expects to come under repeated attack may redouble its efforts to acquire more powerful weapons. Unless military pressure leads to a verifiable agreement, it may simply prepare the ground for the next war.

Escalating Tensions between Türkiye and Israel

For a long time, tensions between Türkiye and Israel revolved around the Palestinian question and diplomatic confrontations. Syria has added a much more direct security dimension. A miscalculation or an incident on the ground could draw the two countries into a conflict that neither could easily control.

Netanyahu’s accusation at the UN General Assembly that Ankara seeks to take over Syria, and his references to Cyprus and Greece in the same speech, should therefore be taken seriously. These accusations do not amount to a declared plan for military action against Türkiye. Nevertheless, by placing disputes with Ankara within the language of war, the Israeli prime minister has indicated the direction in which tensions could drift.

Türkiye does not need Israel’s permission to develop defence cooperation with Syria. Ankara’s interests nevertheless lie in maintaining its military strength while keeping open the channels of communication needed to prevent accidents and miscalculations on the ground. Deterrence works when the other side understands which actions will bring which consequences. Israel’s growing ties with Greece and the Greek Cypriot Administration, its expanding relations with India, and Türkiye–Pakistan cooperation are all parts of a wider picture. It would be simplistic to regard all these relationships as elements of an entirely anti-Türkiye design. Yet the possibility that partnerships which began separately could, over time, develop into a structure constraining Ankara’s room for manoeuvre cannot be dismissed. As Türkiye strengthens its defence partnerships, it should also expand its trade and transport links, assessing projects such as the Middle Corridor and Iraq’s Development Road within this broader perspective.

What Kind of Peace Does Washington Support?

Israel’s freedom of action in the region cannot be assessed separately from US support.

Trump’s UN address on 22 September offered a revealing insight into the thinking behind that support. He said he would not wait for threats to grow before acting, citing his policy towards Iran as an example. He also stated that military force would be used, if necessary, to defend American interests in the Western Hemisphere.

Trump and Netanyahu do not share every objective. But there is an affinity in their thinking: both favour acting now against threats that might grow in the future. The problem is that the limits of this justification are becoming increasingly unclear. If every state claims the right to attack a neighbour on the grounds that it might one day become dangerous, no country can feel secure.

Washington’s support for Israel’s security does not mean that it will endorse every military decision taken by the Israeli government. Indeed, preventing a clash between Türkiye and Israel in Syria is also in the United States’ interest. The US administration must, however, use its regional influence to end wars as well as to wage them.

Europe’s trade and investment relationships, China’s ties with regional states and its need for secure energy routes, and Russia’s relations with Iran and membership of the UN Security Council offer different diplomatic opportunities. These powers cannot be expected to agree on everything. They can, however, be asked to find common ground on specific measures to prevent the war from spreading further.

The Contribution of the Mecca Agreement

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed by Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on 7 August, takes on greater significance in this context. The meeting of the Strategic, Political and Defence Committee in Istanbul on 31 August marked a step towards placing this cooperation on a regular institutional footing.

Türkiye’s defence capabilities, Saudi Arabia’s economic weight and Pakistan’s military strength can together contribute to deterrence. The agreement’s practical impact will depend on how effectively the three countries can act together in a crisis. There is, meanwhile, no political or legal basis at present for interpreting Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons as an automatic nuclear guarantee to the other two countries.

In his UN address, President Erdoğan linked trilateral defence cooperation to the principle of finding solutions to regional problems from within the region. The value of this cooperation should be judged by its ability to raise the cost for any power seeking to act as it pleases. Yet creating a new opposing bloc will not, by itself, bring peace. The balance that the Mecca Agreement may help establish must be complemented by diplomacy that makes dialogue with rival states possible.

A Helsinki Spirit for the Middle East

Erdoğan’s objections to the unequal application of international law to the strong and the weak, his call for Security Council reform and his emphasis on open diplomacy acquire particular significance here. There is no need to wait for UN reform to turn this criticism into an initiative capable of delivering results. Türkiye can translate its call for regional ownership into a sustained process of dialogue that also includes adversaries. An OSCE-inspired model for the Middle East would be a concrete step in that direction.

I believe the way out of the Middle East’s crises lies in building a framework that preserves deterrence while bringing adversaries to the same table. Despite all its shortcomings, the Helsinki experience, which gave rise to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), offers an example that merits serious consideration in the Middle East.

The countries that came together in Helsinki in 1975 had little trust in one another. The intense rivalry between NATO and the Warsaw Pact continued. Even so, they were able to discuss principles governing the protection of borders, sovereignty and fundamental rights. They developed arrangements to make military activities more predictable. This was the value of the process that later became the OSCE: rules for coexistence could be established even while disagreements persisted.

I do not present this experience as an unqualified success. The Helsinki principles did not prevent every war, and reaching common decisions was not always easy. Under the Middle East’s present circumstances, my proposal is not to reproduce the European organisation in every detail, but to adopt the same basic approach: keeping states that distrust one another in continuous contact.

Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran, alongside other countries in the region and even Israel, could come together in a security and cooperation process in which Palestine would participate on an equal footing. Support from the United States, the European Union, China and Russia would also be essential, provided they did not take decisions on behalf of the region’s countries.

There is no need to wait for a grand peace conference to produce results before making a start. Rules could be established for encounters between military aircraft and naval vessels. Major exercises could be notified in advance. Direct hotlines could allow communication after missile- or drone-related incidents, before decisions to retaliate are taken. These seemingly modest measures could prevent a major war from breaking out by accident.

Over the longer term, the elimination of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction from the region must also be discussed. Such negotiations would need to address not only Iran’s programme, but also Israel’s nuclear capabilities.

With its diplomatic experience and capacity, Türkiye is one of the countries that could lead this initiative. It does not need to agree with every party to do so. It needs to defend its own rights firmly while remaining able to talk to countries with which it disagrees. Diplomacy is most valuable precisely when dialogue is most difficult.

The future of the Middle East, a region of critical importance to global peace and stability, cannot be left to statements of condemnation or declarations of victory issued after each new attack. The Mecca Agreement can raise the cost of aggression. An OSCE-inspired regional process, in turn, can pave the way for agreements that make resorting to aggression unnecessary. The region’s way out lies in building an order in which countries that distrust one another no longer have to wage perpetual war to address their fears.