Will the US Strike Iran This Weekend? What Istanbul Said

Eight foreign ministers met in Istanbul on Friday 23 October and left with one message for Washington: no new attack on Iran. The same day, Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Türkiye, told a podcast host that a strike this weekend was possible, and President Donald Trump, asked about it on landing in Florida, said he knew nothing about it.

The gap between those three scenes is the story. A day earlier a White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, had ruled out US strikes before the 3 November midterm elections, according to Ynet. By Friday night the ambassador, the president and the ministers were each describing a different timetable. Silent Dossier has already set out the case for a post-midterm strike and tracks the offers and refusals on the US-Iran talks tracker.

The R4 group (Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt) sat down with the E3 (the UK, France, Germany) and Italy for the first time in this format, and no minister publicly backed military action. Barrack said a strike was possible and also said Trump was open to a deal. Trump said “we may do another little Epic Fury, or they’ll agree” and, separately, that he did not know about the ambassador’s remark. Iran’s own answer was a trip: Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that President Masoud Pezeshkian will meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week.

Al Jazeera, which covered the meeting, called it a “first-of-its-kind” attempt to discuss the parameters of regional conflicts, in the words of its correspondent Sinem Koseoglu. She added that the participants “all have different national interests, especially when it comes to the crisis in the Gulf.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke to reporters afterwards. “Military intervention in Iran is by no means a solution. No one supports this at the moment,” he said, according to Anadolu Agency. He described the format as “informal and flexible”, and said Ankara “is well placed to play a constructive role in this process.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said further escalation “would create nothing but losers and would undoubtedly have very serious consequences for hydrocarbon prices,” Al Jazeera reported. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told reporters: “I do not believe the problem can be solved from a purely military standpoint.” Italy’s aim, he said, is “de-escalation to guarantee freedom of navigation”.

The four R4 ministers issued a joint statement. As reported by The Express Tribune, they backed the Islamabad memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran and called for the “swift and full resumption of safe, secure and unimpeded passage” through the Strait of Hormuz. They condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and on Red Sea shipping, and called Israeli occupation “the fundamental source of instability in the region and beyond”, the wording Al Jazeera quoted.

Barrack was speaking to the podcaster Mario Nawfal, not at the Istanbul meeting. Asked whether a strike could come this weekend, he answered: “Could there be a strike this weekend? Absolutely.” He continued: “The president is very clear. He’s open and available and accessible to a deal.” He also said: “The consequence won’t be regime change,” as Yahoo News relayed.

A reporter put the “absolutely” to Trump after he landed in Florida. “That was my ambassador to Turkey?” Trump said. Then: “He’s a pretty powerful man, I guess.” And: “Well, if that’s the case, I don’t know anything about it. Thank you very much, everybody.”

The same day, Ynetnews reported, Trump had said: “We may do another little Epic Fury, or they’ll agree.” On the White House lawn he asked whether the US wanted to “finish it off or just want to let it wither”.

Set the dates side by side. The White House spokesperson ruled out strikes before 3 November on Thursday. Barrack said “absolutely” on Friday. Trump said on Friday that he knew nothing, and also that “we may do another little Epic Fury”.

Barrack’s second sentence carries the same offer Trump made on the lawn: a deal is on the table, and the alternative is another round of strikes. The ministers in Istanbul addressed that choice directly. Fidan, Barrot and Tajani each argued against the strike side of it, and the R4 statement named the Islamabad memorandum as the framework to protect.

Analysts on the record describe a threat that Tehran takes seriously. Cole Bucy, a former CIA analyst who was director for Iran at the National Security Council in 2015 and 2016, wrote in War on the Rocks on 21 October that “Iranian leaders likely see more decapitation strikes after the U.S. midterm elections as a credible threat.” He added that “Iran has warned that it will inflict the same pain back onto Gulf Arab civilian infrastructure.”

The Soufan Center’s IntelBrief of 20 October quoted Qatar’s emir telling the Shura Council: “War is imminent. We must be prepared for the worst possible scenarios.” It counted 23 reported attacks on ships in the Strait since the start of October and put WTI crude above $100 a barrel. Barrot’s reference to hydrocarbon prices is the European version of the same worry.

Pezeshkian’s Moscow meeting with Putin next week is the next fixed date. The second is 3 November, the midterm election, which the White House has named as the earliest point for any strike. Anadolu reported that the US and Israel are said to have drawn up plans for strikes after that vote, without naming a source.

Three markers will show which timetable is real. One is whether Barrack’s “absolutely” is repeated by anyone with authority over the military. Another is whether the R4 and E3 ministers meet again, as the German foreign minister said they would, according to Anadolu. The last is whether ship attacks in the Strait continue at the October pace. If they do, the Istanbul statement will have changed nothing about Washington’s decision.