Those who remember that photograph taken in Tehran on May 17, 2010, will recall the image: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arms linked and raised together. Türkiye and Brazil had found a possible way out of Iran’s nuclear impasse through a fuel-swap agreement. Three weeks later, when United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929, imposing sanctions on Iran, came to a vote on June 9, Türkiye stood with Iran and voted no.

In Western capitals, and in Türkiye itself, headlines spoke of an "axis shift.” Ankara’s loyalty was questioned. A year earlier, Erdoğan had already been branded "Iran’s lawyer” for defending Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy. Taking such a position came at a price.

Then came the years of sanctions. While much of the world shut its doors to Iran, Türkiye kept trading with its neighbour, continued buying its natural gas, and kept the diplomatic channel open. The price of keeping that door open was eventually presented to Türkiye in a New York courtroom, where the matter lingered for years. That chapter has only now been closed, and hardly on easy terms.

Iran’s Bank Mellat operated in Istanbul for 44 years. Mahan Air had been on the U.S. sanctions list since 2011 over allegations that it provided logistical support to the Quds Force. Yet, for a full 15 years, it continued flying between Tehran and Istanbul.

Now both have been shut down. The Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) revoked Bank Mellat’s operating licence in a decision dated Sept. 18. Mahan Air operated its final flight yesterday.

Predictably, the familiar chorus began immediately: "America wanted it, and Türkiye bowed.”

But Washington had been demanding this for 15 years. The real question, therefore, is not what Washington wanted. It is why Ankara said no for 15 years, and why it no longer does.

For the answer, one should look not to Washington, but to Tehran.

On March 9 this year, an Iranian ballistic missile that violated Turkish airspace was brought down over the skies of Gaziantep. Four days later, another one followed.

The missiles of a neighbour whose position Türkiye had defended in the nuclear dispute, and whose doors Ankara had kept open throughout the sanctions years, had now crossed Turkish skies.

That is where the complaint should end, and accountability should begin.

And that reckoning is, in fact, long overdue.

When the U.S. entered Afghanistan in 2001, Iran worked alongside Washington during the Bonn process. Tehran provided the Americans with substantial assistance against the Taliban. In 2003, as the tanks of the "Great Satan” rolled into Baghdad, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (SCIRI) and the Badr Brigade, both backed by Tehran, entered Iraq in their wake.

This is not merely an accusation made by outsiders. Iran’s then vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, openly acknowledged it in Abu Dhabi in January 2004: without Iran’s assistance, Kabul and Baghdad would not have fallen so easily.

The founding moment of the so-called "axis of resistance” was, ironically, a partnership forged in the aftermath of an invasion.

Then came Syria.

The repression that began in 2011 with the torture of children who had written graffiti on a wall in Daraa evolved into a killing machine sustained by Iran’s Quds Force, Hezbollah, the Afghan Fatemiyoun and Pakistan’s Zainabiyoun militias.

Qusayr fell in 2013. In Madaya, people were reduced to boiling grass to survive. In December 2016, eastern Aleppo was reduced to rubble. In places such as Sednaya, people were crushed and buried as though they were nothing more than scraps of paper.

The war ultimately claimed more than 600,000 lives and displaced millions.

The principal perpetrators of this catastrophe were the Assad regime and Tehran, which kept it alive for 13 years.

The suffering inflicted in Syria was no less real than that inflicted in Palestine. The difference was that its perpetrators called themselves " the resistance.”

Türkiye stood on the right side of that history. It opened its doors and embraced more than 4 million Syrians. President Erdoğan did so knowing full well that it would carry a high domestic political cost. He stood with those who had risen against tyranny.

When the Assad regime finally collapsed on Dec. 8, 2024, history delivered its verdict.

Tehran had lost 13 years of investment. Ankara had preserved its conscience.

Yemen followed a similar script.

The Houthis entered Sanaa in September 2014. They laid siege to Taiz for years, sent children to the front and turned humanitarian assistance into a weapon.

The irony was that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), at the time, tolerated and supported the Houthi advance to weaken Islah, the movement associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Türkiye, by contrast, identified Iranian expansionism by name as early as 2015 while still travelling to Tehran and refusing to close the door to dialogue. It criticized Saudi Arabia openly, but it also criticized Iran. It sent the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) and Türkiye's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD ) to help the people of Yemen.

It was one of the few actors capable of maintaining both principle and dialogue at the same time.

Iran, meanwhile, has cooperated with the U.S. against the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, with Armenia against Azerbaijan and with India against Pakistan.

And yet those in Türkiye who cheered for Tehran continue to lecture others on morality.

After the U.S.-Iran cease-fire collapsed in July, Houthi missiles turned toward Saudi oil facilities. On Aug. 6, 11 civilians were wounded in Najran. The following day, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. On Sept. 8, another Houthi attack left 73 people wounded. A Houthi drone was subsequently reported to have been intercepted south of Mecca, although the Houthis denied it. On Sept. 19, a ballistic missile was fired at Riyadh.

It was at precisely this moment that Houthi spokesperson Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told Türkiye and Pakistan to "put their own house in order.”

When Pakistan conveyed a message to Tehran urging it to rein in its proxy, Iran’s response was blunt: "We do not control the Houthis.”

Then the question must be asked: If you do not control them, by what route do their missiles, drones and munitions reach Yemen?

Iran has a familiar reflex: anyone who challenges its policies is branded a "Zionist.”

Yet, Israel has spent months openly targeting Türkiye. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declared in February that "Türkiye is the new Iran.” Defense Minister Israel Katz has not hesitated to personally insult the Turkish president.

The country in Israel’s crosshairs is now being threatened by an Iranian proxy.

One can leave it to the reader to decide who, in such circumstances, is actually serving whose geopolitical interests.

The timing is hardly incidental either.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has noted that although the PKK announced its dissolution in May 2025, there has still been no concrete step toward disarmament. At precisely the moment Türkiye is approaching the most sensitive stage in dismantling a decades-old terrorism problem, a new line of tension is being drawn along its southern flank.

Let us merely recall, in passing, Iran’s support for the YPG, and leave that parenthesis open for now.

Türkiye also has its own Houthi romanticism.

It exploits the sincere consciences of people who mistake Houthi actions in the Red Sea for an uncomplicated expression of solidarity with Gaza.

But a movement that cooperates with the U.S. when it suits its interests, keeps Bab el-Mandeb open to U.S. and Israeli traffic while closing it to Saudi Arabia, and pursues the same geopolitical fragmentation of the region as Israel, from Assad to the YPG, is not sitting at Gaza’s table. It is sitting at Tehran’s.

Those who translate Iran’s propaganda into Turkish should also remember the children who starved to death in Madaya.

Türkiye confronted Saudi Arabia in 2015, when Riyadh was supporting the Houthis in order to weaken Islah.

Today, Türkiye is not taking its present position merely because the Houthis have fallen out with the Saudis.

In reality, Türkiye is the one country that has remained where it has always stood. Ankara’s position today is equally clear.

As Foreign Minister Fidan has put it, Türkiye will not accept Saudi Arabia, having attacked no one, being dragged into the Iran-U.S. conflict. At the same time, Ankara is carrying both its alliance obligations and its determination not to be dragged into a war.

This is the same Türkiye we saw in 2010: principled, independent and nobody’s proxy. Türkiye has not changed. Iran has.

For 15 years, Türkiye’s patience was one of Iran’s most valuable strategic assets. But Tehran spent that capital in Aleppo, in Sanaa and now in the skies over Gaziantep.

If it continues spending it in Yemen, Türkiye will not be the one left poorer.