At Israel’s expense: Turkey and Saudi Arabia are promoting a new trade route

Turkey is trying to realize in different ways the results of Operation Hari’s Roar to promote its regional interests, with one of the most recent and most significant steps taken recently being the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia for the re-establishment of the Hijaz railway. This is a railway that was launched in 1908 and at that time connected Damascus with the city of Medina in the Hejaz province in the western Arabian Peninsula. In this way, Ankara hopes to create an alternative trade route to the Strait of Hormuz, bypassing the IMEC corridor plan in which Israel is involved.

As early as September 2023, then US President Joe Biden unveiled the IMEC plan to create a corridor between India and Europe, through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. However, the ongoing war in the Middle East since October 7, 2023 prevented any progress, while in the meantime Turkey, which was enraged at being ignored in the project, created two parallels: the “Development Road” in cooperation with Iraq, And now the Hijaz railway.

The restoration of the Hijaz rail route is critical in the aspect of neutralizing the IMEC project, since if the Saudis are involved in it, it is not certain how economically viable it will be for them to invest in the plan in cooperation with Israel. At the same time, in the political aspect, it does not seem at all that they have any benefit in the venture with Israel, after Operation Hari’s Roar severely damaged the strong image of the Gulf countries in general and Riyadh in particular.

On the other hand, the restoration of the Hijaz railway route will not put the Saudis in a problematic political position, considering Israel’s involvement. Instead, the designated trade corridor will skip between other countries. Instead of the original route of the Hijaz train that passed through Mecca and Medina, the new route will pass through western Saudi Arabia to the port of Aqaba in Jordan. From there, he will continue to Amman, Damascus and Aleppo – and from there to Turkey. It is already connected by an extensive railway infrastructure to Europe, which may only expand with the project.

“During the last war, the Turks tried to emphasize that there was a problem with the supply chains,” says Dr. Chai Eitan Cohen Yanrojak, an expert on Turkey at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University and the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. It was supposed to leave a port in southern Iraq, cross the country and enter Turkey. After that, if and when the Hijaz railway is established, then it can be done like a horseshoe. The central bridge of the horseshoe will be Turkey, which will succeed in being a bridge between the eastern part of the Middle East and the western part, will increase Syria’s chances of receiving a share of the intended economic potential of IMEC, and will weaken Israel’s interests.”