Turkey’s Regional Gamble: Military Expansion and Political Contradictions with Salim Çevik

In this episode of The Amargi Mosaic, host Elif Sarican speaks with Salim Çevik about Turkey’s transformation from NATO member to ambitions of becoming a unilateral military actor. They examine Turkey’s role in Syria from attempts to make peace with Bashar al-Assad to backing Ahmed al-Sharaa whilst the state remains deeply fragile, and the Kurdish contradiction—military operations against the PKK alongside peace initiatives and the recent SDF-KRG meetings. Çevik analyses Turkey’s balancing act of providing drones to Ukraine whilst refusing to sanction Russia, supporting Hamas whilst continuing trade with Israel, and considering BRICS membership whilst staying in NATO. The conversation maps Turkey’s military footprint from Cyprus to Somalia and questions whether this represents strategic genius or dangerous overreach. Drawing on his visual report “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Activism,” Çevik explores what regional order Turkey is trying to create and whether economic struggles make this expansion sustainable.

Salim Çevik is a Fellow at the Center for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and an associate researcher at Clingendael, specialising in Turkish foreign policy and Islamist movements.