Supply Chains, the Hormuz Crisis, and Türkiye’s Strategic Crossroads

An Op-Ed for Dış Politika Enstitüsü (DPE) | Foreign Policy Institute

May 2026

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Ali O. Diriöz, PhD     adirioz@etu.edu.tr

For decades, the global economy operated on an implicit assumption which took for granted the security of the arteries of international trade — the narrow maritime corridors through which oil, gas, microchips, and consumer goods flow — would remain open. The system rested upon an assumption of shared international commitment to safeguard freedom of navigation. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz since late February 2026, the ongoing tensions between Tel-Aviv, Washington and Tehran, exposed a world trading system built on geographic concentrations through maritime chokepoints. The Strait of Hormuz case is a vivid display about how geopolitical instability can shake the global supply chains overnight.

The routes being disrupted today are not new. They are, in many cases, the modern versions of corridors that have channeled trade, and culture for more than two millennia. The main argument in this manuscript, is that no route or corridor is safer than the political order that makes safe passages possible.

The Strait of Hormuz has been a vulnerability hiding in plain sight. Roughly 33 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, it is the sole maritime exit from the Persian Gulf, channeling approximately 20 percent of the world’s seaborne crude oil and 20 percent of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) through waters, within the territorial sovereignty of Iran and Oman. Before February 2026, around 3,000 vessels transited the strait each month. Today that figure is estimated to stand at roughly 5 percent of pre-conflict level.^[1]

The trigger was Operation Epic Fury — the coordinated US–Israeli air campaign launched on 28 February 2026 that targeted Iranian military and nuclear facilities and resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iran’s response was to inflict maximum economic pain: on 4 March, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the strait “closed,” deploying sea mines, fast attack boats, and drone swarms to enforce the blockade. Within days, war risk insurance for vessels attempting transit became extortionately expensive. Shipping companies suspended operations. The economic ripple effects were immediate — oil prices spiked, LNG spot markets shook, and Asian economies that were dependent on Gulf oil and gas supply, scrambled to adjust production schedules.^[2] The United States responded on 13 April with a counter-blockade of Iranian ports, deepening the standoff. A conditional ceasefire announced on 7–8 April has done little to restore normal commerce. The situation remains tense as of mid-May 2026. 

The stakes extend far beyond oil and gas. Fertilizer supply chains, aviation connectivity, tourism, petrochemicals, datacenters, and water desalination infrastructure across the region have all been disrupted. The crisis has demonstrated that geographic concentration in critical supply chains is a systemic risk.

While the Hormuz crisis seems at a stand-still, the resource and trade competition between the USA and China still remains as a dramatic rivalry. China’s dominance over critical mineral and rare earth supply chains is a main source of the ‘trade wars’ between China and USA. The Trump–Xi summit in Beijing will try to on one hand accept that, in spite of intense strategic rivalry, the economic interdependence between USA and China is real.

The Hormuz crisis has complicated the calculus in ways neither side fully anticipated. The war against Iran is arguably consuming US munitions at a rate that has exposed Washington’s dependence on heavy rare earth elements for weapons replenishment — precisely the materials over which China retains a near-monopoly.^[3]

Critically, China has carefully been balancing the situation at the Strait of Hormuz; on one hand managing relations with the United States, while maintaining economic ties with Iran. Beijing has reached diplomatic arrangements with Iran allowing Chinese-flagged vessels to continue transiting the strait, and China absorbs approximately 90 percent of Iranian oil exports.

It is against this turbulent backdrop that Türkiye’s strategic position must be understood — not as a passive beneficiary of others’ misfortunes, but as an active participant in geography that has shaped Eurasian connectivity for millennia.

The Silk Roads, as UNESCO describes them, were “an interconnected web of routes linking the ancient societies of Asia, the Subcontinent, Central Asia, Western Asia and the Near East,” facilitating not merely trade in silk and spices but the exchange of scientific knowledge, religious belief, and cultural practice.^[4] These routes were never singular or stable: they shifted with political orders, expanded under peaceful empires, and contracted under conflict. The territory of modern Türkiye sat at their western terminus, the irreplaceable gateway between the Eurasian landmass and the Mediterranean world.

Türkiye’s development of various connectivity options, such as the “Middle Corridor” on the New Silk Road route, The Development Road, or the modern Hejaz railroads,  is both an economic and a foreign policy imperative: “One of the economic and foreign policy objectives of Türkiye is the development of the Middle Corridor on the New Silk Road route and thus becoming a logistics base in the terrestrial East-West trade via Eurasia and being a center in the supply chain.”^[5]

The Middle Corridor — formally known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) — links China and Central Asia to Europe via Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye, bypassing both Russia and Iran. Its strategic value has grown dramatically since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made the Northern Corridor (through Russia) a financial and political liability for Western-oriented firms. Since then, cargo volumes along the Middle Corridor have grown substantially, with Türkiye positioning itself as a key node through the Organization of Turkic States (OTS). The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) Railway, now targeting a capacity expansion to 17 million tons by 2034, provides the critical Caucasian rail link that connects Central Asian rail networks to Turkish and, through the Marmaray tunnel, European networks.^[6]

Türkiye already sits on “the natural route of various corridors, projects and routes,” and that excluding Türkiye from major connectivity initiatives — as arguably in the initial design of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) — is ultimately making that corridor less advantageous: “Running a corridor that does not benefit from the advantages that Türkiye will provide to world trade and international supply chains will not be easy, neither economically nor commercially.”^[7] Türkiye provides ports, airlines, railways, logistics experience, and industrial capacity that no rival corridor can fully replicate.

With Persian Gulf shipping lanes disrupted as a result of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, overland routes through Iran blocked by sanctions and conflict, and Red Sea routes complicated by Houthi threats, has raised the urgency of alternative options.  The Middle Corridor has emerged as one of the least disrupted major trade arteries between Asia and Europe. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are among the institutions committing financing to infrastructure modernization along the route.^[8]

Türkiye’s Middle Corridor plan is complementary to, rather than in competition with, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Türkiye’s strategic location between Asia and Europe strengthens its collaboration under the BRI.^[9] Türkiye is relevant to Chinese westward ambitions, European diversification strategies, Central Asian route diversifications, and Gulf Arab ambitions to connect to Eurasian markets.

The Hejaz Railway: History Offers a Southern Corridor

Türkiye’s connectivity ambitions are not limited to the East-West axis. A second, historically resonant project is now being actively revived along a North-South axis: such as the Hejaz Railway.

Originally built between 1900 and 1908 under Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II, the Hejaz Railway was one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects of its era — traversing 1,750 kilometers from Istanbul to Medina, reducing a 40-day camel journey to 72 hours. As UNESCO’s World Heritage documentation notes, its stations along the Syrian Hajj road “are directly associated with the Pilgrimage (Hajj) engaged by Muslims from all around the world” and represent an example of Islamic civilizational connectivity.^[10] The railway was fractured by the First World War and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

In September 2025, Türkiye, Syria, and Jordan signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding to revive the line. Under the agreement, Türkiye committed to helping rebuild 30 kilometers of missing Syrian track and drafting an overarching restoration plan, while Jordan undertook technical research into locomotive maintenance. Studies are also underway to explore Türkiye’s access to the Red Sea through Jordan’s Port of Aqaba — a southern maritime outlet that would give Türkiye connectivity to East African markets and the Indian Ocean rim that no existing corridor provides.^[11]

Saudi Arabia has since joined the discussion. Technical feasibility studies for a modern Hejaz corridor — extending the route from Riyadh through Jordan and Syria to Istanbul — are expected to be completed within the year. Such a route would connect Türkiye’s existing rail infrastructure to the Arabian Peninsula, offering an overland alternative to Gulf maritime routes that does not depend on the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, or the Red Sea.

The cultural and diplomatic dimension matters too. The combination of the Middle Corridor (linking Türkiye to China and Central Asia) and a revived Hejaz Railway (linking Türkiye to the Arabian Peninsula and potentially East Africa) would position Türkiye as the hub of a diversified, multi-directional Eurasian connectivity network — exactly the role that Türkiye must pursue as a matter of strategic necessity.

The convergence of the Hormuz closure, offers lessons:

First, Strait of Hormuz demonstrated that diversification strategies — pipeline alternatives, strategic reserves,— require years.

Second, Supply chains are now instruments of power. Iran turned a shipping corridor into a coercive instrument while USA responded with a counter-blockade.

Third, no corridor is safe without the political conditions that allow it to function.

The ancient Silk Roads, as UNESCO documents, “developed over time according to shifting geopolitical contexts throughout history.”^[12] They flourished under empires and coalitions that maintained order along their length; they contracted when those orders collapsed.

The Middle Corridor, for all its current promise, depends on the stability of the Caucasus — a region not without its own latent tensions. Every route is ultimately only as reliable as the political environment through which it passes.

Conclusion: Routes Are Not Enough — Peace is the Infrastructure

Durable connectivity requires durable peace, and durable peace requires institutional architecture.^[13]

The Strait of Hormuz crisis is not resolved by the Middle Corridor or other alternatives. What the current crisis requires a serious reinvestment in the multilateral institutional mechanisms that can provide the political scaffolding for sustainable trade. These include:

• NATO
• The Organisation of Turkic States (OTS)
• The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
• The OSCE
• The European Union

Türkiye, sitting at the intersection of the Middle Corridor, the Hejaz revival, the BRI’s western terminus, and the IMEC’s northern alternative, is uniquely positioned to be an architect of this framework — not just a transit hub. Türkiye’s NATO membership, EU candidate status, OTS membership, and OIC membership gives a set of relationships that no other state in the region possesses.^[14] Ankara’s strategic challenge is to convert geographic indispensability into institutional leadership: to help design the rules under which those corridors operate safely.

The Silk Roads flourished for centuries not because merchants were optimistic, but because the political conditions made them relatively safe to use. The lesson of history, as UNESCO’s documentation of those ancient routes is that trade routes follow political order.^[15]

^[1]House of Commons Library, “Israel/US-Iran Conflict 2026: Reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” May 2026. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10636/

^[2]

^[3]2Foreign Policy, “Trump-Xi Summit: China’s Rare-Earth Trade Leverage,” May 2026.

^[4]3UNESCO, “About the Silk Roads.” https://www.unesco.org/en/silk-roads/about-silk-roads

^[5]Diriöz TASAM profile: https://tasam.org/en/Yazar/16235/assoc-prof-dr-ali-oguz-dirioz; DergiPark: https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/@adirioz

^[6]Geopolitical Monitor, “The Middle Corridor: A Route Born of the New Eurasian Geopolitics,” March 2025.

^[7]Anadolu Agency, “IMEC: Expert Gives 3 Reasons for Türkiye’s Inclusion,” 2023; DPE / ForeignPolicy.org.tr.

^[8]ADB, “Middle Corridor — Policy Development and Trade Potential.”

^[9]Kuşak ve Yol / Xinhua interview with Diriöz, December 2024; Anadolu Agency, “Middle Corridor at Centre of World Trade.”

^[10]UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, “Hejaz Railway / Syrian Hajj Road.” https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6026/

^[11]The National, “Hejaz Railway Revival,” September 2025; TRT World, same, September 2025.

^[12]UNESCO, “About the Silk Roads.”

^[13]Diriöz at İndyTürk: https://www.indyturk.com/article-author/do%C3%A7-dr-ali-o%C4%9Fuz-diri%C3%B6z; DergiPark: https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/@adirioz; DPE: https://foreignpolicy.org.tr/turkiye-and-balancing-east-west-trade-routes/

^[14]SWP Berlin, “Turkey: Industrial Supply Chain Policy,” 2025. https://www.swp-berlin.org/publications/products/research_papers/2025RP02_Turkey_Industrial_SupplyChainPolicy.pdf; Business Diplomacy, “Türkiye’s New Role.” https://businessdiplomacy.net/turkiyes-new-role-in-a-period-of-reshaping-global-supply-chains/

^[15]UNESCO, “Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor.” https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1442/