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Amid the regional fallout of the Iran-US-Israel war, Tehran has not denied launching missiles and drones at Gulf countries, where, it claims, it is attacking US-linked assets.
But when it comes to Turkey, it is a different story. In phone calls with senior Turkish officials and public statements, Iran disclaims any such attacks.
“No projectiles have been fired from Iran towards Turkey,” Iran’s embassy in Ankara said following a third missile interception on Friday. Iran was ready to form a “joint technical team” to examine the issue and “remove any ambiguity”, it added. Other officials have suggested that the attacks on Turkey, as well as a drone strike on neighbouring Azerbaijan, could have been Israeli false flag operations, without providing evidence.
Nato member Turkey says three ballistic missiles heading into its airspace have been shot down by the western military alliance’s forces since the war began on February 28. Both Ankara and Nato have blamed all of them on Iran.
“They [Iran] claim they did not issue any orders regarding such a matter and that they have no connection to such an attack,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told journalists on Saturday. “We are, quite frankly, discussing this discrepancy between their statements and the facts with them at various levels.”
Turkey’s main priority is to stay out of the conflict, several senior officials have said in recent weeks. Active in diplomatic efforts to try to avert the conflict before it began, Ankara has a complicated relationship with Tehran. But it also had several reasons to oppose foreign military intervention in Iran. Already surrounded by Ukraine, Syria and Iraq, it wanted to avoid turmoil and possibly internal fragmentation in another neighbour, with which it shares a 530km long land border.
Already struggling with a years-long economic crisis, Ankara was also concerned about repercussions for global energy supplies, and about the possibility of large-scale migration should the conflict drive Iranians from their homes. Turkey’s energy minister has given public assurances that its oil and gas supplies are secure, and there has been no mass migration across the border as yet. But the war shows few signs of ending and its future consequences are difficult to predict.
There are several reasons why Iran is denying attacks on Turkey, according to Mehmet Fatih Ceylan, a former Turkish permanent representative to Nato. Although the targets of the missile attacks are not clear, Turkey hosts several Nato bases at which US military personnel are located, including at Incirlik airbase and Kurecik radar station in the country’s south-east.
“It might want to see whether Nato is in practice able to protect Turkey. It might be testing whether Nato’s missile defence architecture has any vulnerability,” Mr Ceylan told The National. “It might want to give the message to the Turkish public that Turkey is defenceless without Nato, to drive a wedge between the public and the government.”
Longer-term, an Iranian acknowledgement of attacks on Turkey could raise more problems for a country whose economy, infrastructure and leadership have taken a pounding in the continuing war.
“If they officially accept what they are doing in respect of Turkey, which has no intention to get entangled in the ongoing war, they may have to countenance serious legal consequences of their acts when the war is over,” Mr Ceylan said.
Turkey has not called for support from Nato allies to help defend against Iranian attacks, which the alliance’s charter allows for. Overall, Ankara wants to de-escalate and Tehran’s denials allow cover for an off ramp, analysts believe.
Tehran’s denials and allegations of Israeli false flag operations could provide Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with “domestic political cover to avoid escalation against Iran”, the New York based Soufan Centre said in an analysis note. “This would allow Tehran to continue targeting US and Nato-linked interests in the region while minimising the risk of a direct rupture with Turkey.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior officials also have a level of plausible deniability when it comes to attacks on Turkey. Iran is employing a so-called mosaic defence strategy, in which local military commanders are able to make decisions about operations without a high-level green light. In other words, some commanders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or regular Iranian army may be deciding to launch missiles towards Turkey, without anyone else’s involvement.
“The move enables Iran to continue its attacks even if its military leadership is eliminated, but also increases the risk of unco-ordinated drone and missile launches that could trigger unintended escalation,” Gonul Tol, a senior fellow at the US-based Middle East Institute, wrote in a recent analysis note.
Parts of the Turkish public and some political parties, mostly far left-leaning, have long been vocally opposed to Turkey’s Nato membership, stating instead that it should align more closely with countries like Russia and China.
But despite the Nato-linked US military presence in Turkey increasing vulnerability to Iranian attacks, there is no suggestion that Ankara is reconsidering its membership of the alliance. With Nato’s second largest army, Turkey has become an increasingly important partner for Europe over Ukraine. Its burgeoning domestic defence manufacturing industry is attractive as the bloc looks to shore up military power against Russia.
Overall, political parties in the driving seat, including Mr Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, see that Turkey wins more from its Nato membership than it loses.
“The large majority of the public know that it is an asset to be a Nato member, and the support for Nato is increasing within the society in the last decade,” Mr Ceylan said. “The minority view on Nato will continue to persist, but its reliability and convincing space will remain narrow in scope.”
While attacking Turkey as well as Gulf countries indicates Iran’s willingness to hit US military assets wherever they are across the region, Tehran’s denials have their limitations, analysts believe.
“False flag claims and electronic warfare theories may be politically useful for Tehran,” Burcu Ozcelik, a senior fellow at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute think tank, wrote on X. “But they are technically harder to sustain without stronger evidence.”