The potential of the Abraham Accords won’t be realized without Turkey
In the days following the Gaza cease-fire reached on October 13 in Sharm el-Sheikh, the Middle East saw a rare opportunity to reshape the region. The fighting had subsided, but regional arrangements remained fragile. For the West and its allies, the central challenge is getting Israel and Hamas to abide by the cease-fire and US President Donald Trump’s administration’s Twenty Point Plan as a foundation for establishing long-term stability.
In this context, bringing Turkey into the economic and diplomatic process can be seen as a natural extension of the Abraham Accords, which created a framework for regional cooperation. The more the Sharm el-Sheikh process expands to include security and economic coordination with Turkey, the greater the chance that the cease-fire will become a gateway to a comprehensive regional arrangement.
The Sharm el-Sheikh summit, organized at the initiative of the United States, marked a significant diplomatic achievement after two years of war. The summit brought together regional and international actors around stabilizing the cease-fire, establishing a mechanism for Gaza’s reconstruction, and building an infrastructure for regional cooperation. Turkey’s participation—even if not as a main mediator—sent an important message that Ankara is not willing to be excluded from the regional discussion. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has emphasized Turkey’s commitment to humanitarian reconstruction, energy cooperation, and regional economic coordination. These are goals that align well with the spirit of the Abraham Accords, which aims to turn rivalries into regional partnerships.
Yet, the political reality is complex. Relations between Turkey and Israel are at an unprecedented low. In Turkey, public pressure on Erdoğan has grown, urging the president to take a hard line in the wake of the Gaza war. This was reflected in the March 2024 local elections, when Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, made significant gains. And following such pressure, Ankara made the decision to suspend trade with Israel this August.
Yet, during times of tension in the past, trade and energy relations between the two countries endured due to mutual interests. Indeed, trade between the two countries reached roughly seven billion dollars in 2023, making Turkey one of Israel’s top five trading partners.
Now, as a new diplomatic window opens, there is an opportunity to bring the relationship back onto a pragmatic track as part of a broader vision of regional integration. Incorporating Turkey into initiatives related to the Abraham Accords and transnational infrastructure projects—such as the East Mediterranean Gas Forum and future iterations of the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor (IMEC) project—would help create overlapping economic interests that constrain confrontation and promote dialogue. Failure to involve Turkey risks institutionalizing competing integration schemes rather than converging toward a single cooperative framework. In response to Turkey’s exclusion from the IMEC project, Ankara announced a partnership with Iraq, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates on an alternative, called the “Development Road” project. Further marginalization would likely deepen Ankara’s coordination with Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing on transport and energy routes .
Against this backdrop, the responsibility also lies with the West. Constructive engagement with Turkey does not equate to wholehearted support for its policies but rather to recognition of its importance for regional stability. The West should act to include Ankara in Gaza reconstruction initiatives, in the development of transportation routes, and in joint energy projects. This can prevent economic fragmentation and deepen the rationale for the cooperation born from the Abraham Accords. In practice, this is an opportunity to update the 2020 agreements, turning them from a bilateral normalization framework into a multilateral arrangement for regional integration.
The central challenge is trust. Turkey seeks to ensure it is not pushed to the margins, while Israel and the Arab countries that signed the Abraham Accords fear excessive Turkish influence. Here, the United States, the European Union, and the Gulf states must conduct delicate diplomacy with Turkey. Targeted cooperation in economic and civil domains, green energy, water, digitization, and infrastructure can provide a platform for gradually building trust. Including Turkey in such initiatives will also strengthen the partners’ message to Palestinians that Gaza’s reconstruction is not just an Israeli-Western project, but part of a broader regional arrangement. Including Turkey in such initiatives will also strengthen the international message to Palestinians that Gaza’s reconstruction is not just an Israeli-Western project, but part of a broader regional arrangement.
The experience of the Abraham Accords has shown that once former rivals open channels of communication and commerce, mechanisms of mutual restraint are created. In this sense, integrating Turkey into the circle of countries participating in the accords is a natural and necessary step. Beyond that, Turkey’s presence in regional projects will add a key geopolitical dimension to the accords system, thereby balancing Ankara’s geopolitical relations with Iran and contributing to broader legitimacy in the Arab world. The West, the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states therefore have a clear interest in involving Turkey, not as an adversary but as a regional partner. Economic cooperation with Ankara could serve as a growth engine and provide an anchor for political stability. At the same time, it could strengthen the strategic logic of the Abraham Accords and prevent the signatories from becoming a closed club that generates new lines of division.
Ultimately, the postwar Middle East requires new mechanisms of cooperation. Integrating Turkey into this framework, not as a player to manage but as an equal partner, could turn the Abraham Accords into an advanced version of regional integration, in which Gaza reconstruction, energy, and transport connectivity are key elements that serve as a lever for genuine cooperation. If the West and its allies adopt this approach, the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement will be remembered not just as a cease-fire, but as the first step toward a more integrated, stable, and prosperous Middle East.
Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi is a Palestinian-Israeli former politician who served in the Israeli Knesset from 2021 to 2023 as the first Arab woman deputy to parliament chair.
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