[ENG] Eastern Mediterranean Black Sea Conference 2025 – Istanbul

di Alessandro Fanetti (responsabile dipartimento America Latina del Centro Studi Eurasia e Mediterraneo)

The conference entitled ‘Eastern Mediterranean – Black Sea Conference 25’, promoted by the National Strategy Centre and held in Istanbul on 18-19 July, was attended by various experts in geopolitics and international relations from almost 20 countries around the world.

It was a key opportunity to discuss the main geopolitical challenges of the Third Millennium, starting from this decisive region and then moving on to the entire globe. All framed by the global “titanic” clash between unipolarism and multipolarism. An opportunity strongly desired and perfectly organised by the highly prepared members of the National Strategy Centre and the Vatan Partisi (Patriotic Party). CeSEM was present at the conference, with its representative elaborating during his speech, among other things, on the need to develop a real and complete multipolar world, which certainly cannot ignore the emergence, in this area of the planet, of a sort of “Islamic pole” that is as united as possible on the one hand and in dialogue with the rest of the “global multipolar puzzle” on the other. The conference explored and analysed, among other things, the role of this strategic region in global geopolitical dynamics, the clash between globalism and the defence of various cultures, the dire situation facing Gaza and the Palestinian people, and the strategic role of Turkey.

Below is the Final Declaration of the two-day convention and Cesem’s speech:

Final Declaration

Istanbul, 19 July 2025

The Eastern Mediterranean Black Sea Conference 2025 convened in Istanbul on 18-19 July 2025, upon the invitation of the National Strategy Centre (USMER). Representatives of a wide array of political institutions and strategy experts hailing from 17 countries took part in the conference. After two days of presentations and debates, it was resolved to release the following Final Declaration to the World Public Opinion.

Today, the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean have become the focal point of global conflicts. The challenges and confrontations shaping the future of humanity are concentrated in this region where our homelands are located.

From the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus and the north of the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, from Egypt, Libya and Cyprus via Palestine and Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran to the Strait of Hormuz, Yemen and the Sea of Oman, a single front has emerged against the threat of the globalist West allied with the United States and Israel. This front is not only a shared frontline of the states and peoples of the region: It is the very frontline of humanity. For the sake of the independence and sovereignty of our states, the integrity of our homelands, the freedom and welfare of our peoples, we join forces along every single front of our region against Atlantic imperialism and hereby declare to the entire humankind our resolve to fight. The attempt by Atlantic imperialists to put forth the concept of ‘freedom’ against state security was stillborn. In Western Asia, we see ethnic, religious and sectarian differences not as a cause for division but as a source of richness.

Attempts to expand NATO eastward in the north of the Black Sea target all the countries and peoples of the Black Sea and Mediterranean. We are pinpointing the artificial, hostile hysteria of European globalists along this front and calling upon all patriots and workers of Europe to fight against the war barons of Berlin, Paris and London. The resistance staged by Russia and everyone else along this front is for the sake of our common future. A NATO expanding towards the east is a NATO marching to its death.

In the face of US and European globalists’ attempts to erect walls among the countries of the Caucasus region and pit them against each other, we raise a strong call for unity and solidarity. The inclusion of South Caucasus countries – Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia- into NATO would provoke hostilities in the region and escalate threats against all Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean countries. Türkiye must use her veto power against such an initiative.

We strongly condemn the aggression of US imperialism and Israeli Zionism, which from 1991 onwards have attacked Iraq and Syria with arms, threatened Turkey and Iran, unleashed divisive and fanatical terrorist organisations upon us, and shed the blood of millions of our sisters and brothers, all with a view to establishing a second Israeli state under the name of ‘Kurdistan.’ Iran’s success in forcing Israel and The US to backdown in the recent 12-Day War is a significant contribution to the defence of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. We condemn the attempts to suppress Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy efforts and to divide Iran. Most recently, Syria’s struggle to defend its state and territorial integrity against Israeli attacks is, yet again, a part of our joint struggle.

We call on all states of the region to reinforce the heroic struggle of the Palestinian state and people in the face of Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank -not with words, but with armed defence. We condemn the attempts to impose the so-called Abraham Accords on Syria and call on the Syrian leadership and the leadership of other countries in the region not to be led by the promises of Israel and The United States and to support the creation of an independent Palestine. We all stand together for a permanent peace and for the decisive victory of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. We stand with Palestinians and we feel like as if we are all Palestinian.

Seizing control of the US and NATO bases that jeopardize peace, stability and development in Western Asia, spanning from the Black Sea, the Aegean shores and Cyprus to Eastern Anatolia, is not only a national duty for the states of the region, but also their responsibility towards their neighbours and humanity.

The naval exercises conducted by the United States, Israel and some regional powers in the Eastern Mediterranean, under the names Noble Dina and Nemesis constitute, in our view, a threat to the ‘blue homelands’ and terrestrial homelands of all the countries in the region: We hereby express our resolve to defend our shared homelands, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, together with their resources, against this threat.

In order to reinforce bastions of resistance against Western globalist aggression, we propose all states across the world, especially those in our region, to acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and also to recognise the statehood of Republic of Abkhazia and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

We call for intensified security cooperation between the countries of the region and non-Western countries, primarily China and Russia. Maintaining Türkiye’s as well as Russia’s military presence in collaboration with Syrian government in Syria will help maintain the balance of power in the region, providing a counterweight to the US and NATO and easing tensions. Close military cooperation with China will help ensure independence from the West and ensure the security of maritime trade routes from the Persian Gulf to the Bosphorus.
It is urgent to put an end to the West-led intervention in Libya, support the legitimate government of Libya, and assure the country’s territorial integrity. Libya’s legitimate government, recognised by the UN, has every right to reunite its homeland by all means – this also constitutes the unique solution for peace in the Mediterranean. Libya’s oil belongs to the Libyan state and people.We call on the government of Libya and other countries in the region to refrain from participating in Western plans to deport refugees and migrants. If Western plans for a large-scale forced return of migrants to the southern Mediterranean countries are successful, the region will inevitably face economic difficulties, increased crime rates, and new political challenges related to the reintegration of migrants into local society. The countries of the region must act as a united bloc against attempts by Europe and the United States to destabilize the situation by returning migrants.

A joint struggle should be waged to lift the official and de facto sanctions and isolation, embargoes imposed upon Iran, Russia, Syria, Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Abkhazia, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, and circumstances should be created for free trade, economic collaboration and mutual respect to sovereignties between countries. So as to put an end to the domination of the dollar and to uphold the welfare of the peoples of the world, Trade in National Currencies should be developed. We share the efforts of the People’s Republic of China in advancing trade and production through the Belt and Road Initiative. We are partners of the Belt and Road Initiative in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea region

The globalist system of the West has begun to destroy both humankind and nature. The Western system has embarked upon an epoch of decay, where it tries to turn women into men and men into women, normalise drugs and suicide, oppress women, weaken family ties, shatter societies, and annihilate everything that is human. This system is collapsing. The humankind is faced with problems that can no longer be solved through self-interest and selfishness. Under these conditions, across the horizon of humanity, there appears a brand new, enlightened civilisation that upholds the independence of states and humanism, and hinges on sharing and the public sector.

The US imperialism’s claim to be the unique master of the world has sunk into the quagmire. Now, the Multipolar World is no longer a sliver of hope, but an objective reality. In the face of the Western system in collapse, we share and salute all efforts of countries across the world to join forces in regional alliances such as BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, African Union, Latin American Union, ASEAN, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arabic Liga, Economic Cooperation Organization(ECO) and Organisation of Turkic States, as well as to liberate the United Nations from Western mandate so as to respond to the demands of states seeking independence and of peoples seeking freedom.

A brand new world is being built. The waves of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean are rising high for the grand future of the humankind. Struggle and solidarity for this grand future are our duties towards humanity. For this purpose, we announce to the world public our resolve to convene the Eastern Mediterranean Black Sea Conference every two years in a different port of our seas.

Our ‘Blue Homeland’ constitutes a boundary between us and Western Imperialism. We are the common defence guardians of this frontier.

The Mediterranean and The Black Sea maritime zones belong to the peoples of Mediterranean and Black Sea.

Transoceans ınterventions will drown in the waters of Mediterranean and The Black Sea.

The future is in our hands.

Pivot to multipolarism: the strategic role of Western Asia

First of all, I would like to extend warm thanks to all the organisers, the National Strategy Centre and President Şule Perinçek.

A warm greeting from me and the entire “Eurasia and Mediterranean Studies Centre” (CeSEM), especially from my colleague Stefano Bonilauri.

The resurgence of conflicts that are developing nowadays (albeit with different and oscillating degrees of intensity) in the Black Sea – East Mediterranean area, clearly reflect the strategic geopolitical conflict unipolarism – multipolarism.

On the one hand we thus see the desperate attempt of the defenders of unipolarism to somehow maintain the status quo that arose after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequent dissolution of the Soviet Union (1989 – 1991). A “unipolar pole” that, having just seen the rise of a world with only one Superpower, was even convinced that it had brought the “geopolitical world” to the “End of History” (Fukuyama dixit). An “end of history” period in which even the West Asian area had somehow shown itself incapable of opposing such hegemony (even though the shoots of resistance to such an order and promotion of another design were already firmly anchored in various popular strata and in some of the ruling classes).

The unipolar vision described above is therefore opposed by the other hand composed of all those forces that aspire to the birth of a true, complete and substantial multipolar world.

An all – out clash that ideally and materially divides the globe into two substantially opposed “geopolitical visions”, with the conflict becoming more acute by the day.

In this regard, two examples clarify the situation well:

1) The Cuba – Venezuela – Nicaragua Axis is considered diametrically opposed by the two camps: the “unipolar bloc” defines it with contempt as the “axis of evil”, while the “multipolar bloc” considers it a substantial and even essential part of itself.

2) While former US President Ronald Reagan had already defined the Soviet Union as the “evil empire” and still in June 2025 NATO defined Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to the Atlantic Alliance”, thus seeking to isolate it from the rest of the world, Moscow however actively participates as a protagonist in all the major organisations clearly oriented towards the multipolar idea.

And in this regard, Western Asia as a whole is, at least since recent years, one of the hubs of active resistance to unipolarism; and thus one of the “strategic beacons” for the construction of a multipolar world.

The pressure exerted by the so – called “political West” in this area, first and foremost by the USA (and its most faithful allies in the “armed wing” NATO), as well as its “iron partner” Israel, is so strong and decisive precisely for this reason.

Pressure that has two key breaking points: Israel’s all – out war against the entire non – aligned Middle East and an unwieldy NATO presence on Russia’s borders.

Two existential dangers not only for this region, but for the entire world, that reappear overbearingly on the global geopolitical scene as “monsters” that somehow seek to halt a multipolar transition that is in essence inescapable. To save an objectively agonising unipolarism not only in this region but essentially across the globe.

In the words of my compatriot, the great Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, the new one is slow to appear. And in this contrast between light and dark monsters are born.”

Existential monsters that must be properly addressed by multipolar forces, and in general by all those who aspire to ameliorative changes in the global geopolitical landscape. Tackled both regionally and globally, trying as far as possible to put reason against barbarism.

In this context, West Asia (and Asia as a Continent) and its most proactive, Eurasian and multipolar forces have all the cards to play a leading role in the transition to the “new world”. And in order to fully spread its wings, it is inevitable to give birth to a sort of cohesive and as united as possible “Islamic Pole”, even and firstly on concrete and inescapable issues such as tackling the Palestinian question in a decisive manner. It is to be considered in the immediate future, in fact, the mother of all battles and an open wound for all those forces that aspire to multipolarism and defend the self – determination of peoples.

Therefore, a pole that geopolitically brings together the various peoples of the region who aspire and struggle for an area of peace, development, unity and prosperity; against all kinds of external interference and global imperialism. A pole that is not only united every now and then in some “dialogue format” with few concrete implications, but that succeeds in having a certain political homogeneity and gives substance to the claims and aspirations of the peoples that make it up.

A pole then capable of participating actively and concretely, with strong leadership capabilities, in the various continental and global multilateral fora.

A pole that is truly capable of organising itself into a true and solid geopolitical bloc, sovereign and effectively united. First and foremost, to adequately tackle a certain Western hegemony that is still present. A hegemony that especially in the Middle East is represented and led by Israel (with the almost unconditional support of the United States of America). Also because it is quite clear in everyone’s eyes that fragmentation guarantees wider margins of manoeuvre for unipolar designs, even in this region.

A “pole among poles”, therefore, as it is clear and obvious that for the complete and delineated construction of the multipolar world there is a need for the division of the world into “geopolitical poles”. All with a certain independence, unity, sovereignty and “existential capacity”.

Poles formed by “large spaces”, each inhabited by “peoples – civilisations” characterised by a certain unitary and sovereign capacities. Accustomed to independence and “allergic” to external interference and meddling.

Division into poles that, with a certain degree of approximation, could be as follows:

United States of America (or North – America more generally)
Latin America and the Caribbean
The great spaces of the Pacific
Africa
The Islamic Pole
The Great European Space
The Chinese Civilisation
The Indian Civilisation
The Russian Civilisation

In all this, it is clear and straightforward that Turkey can and must play a pivot role. A Turkey fully inserted in the “multipolar dynamic”, that is, able to play all its cards without external ties and laces of any kind. Indeed, there are few “States – Civilisations” in the world that can aspire to the leading role within the geopolitical pole of reference and in the global landscape. And Ankara is one of those, first and foremost because of its history and the capabilities it can still bring to bear. In the service of itself, of its pole of reference and of a fairer and safer world for all.

In all this context, the defeat of the unipolar Israel – US axis in the area, together with the development of a renewed united, sovereign and acting capacity among the various countries with an Islamic majority in the region, would certainly be a determined and decisive step towards the full realisation of the multipolar world.

And on the other hand, an absolutely strategic defeat for the global unipolar axis; which would guarantee the entire area a renewed overall and above all proactive protagonism towards the full realisation of multipolarism. An undeniable advance towards the latter, therefore, but one that would still commit the entire “new multipolar area” to a renewed struggle to support the emancipation of peoples in other parts of the world as well.

In my opinion, in fact, the definitive defeat of the “unipolar axis” can only pass through the strengthening of the various “multipolar areas” and the support of these latter (as they have reached a certain level of independence, sovereignty and unity) to the other areas that are not yet able to independently achieve this condition.

In this regard, the signing of “global strategic partnerships”, such as the “Russia – North Korea partnership” of 2024, seems to be heading in this direction. So does the Beijing – Moscow “no – limits friendship”.

And so does the creation of regional and/or global supranational organisations of a clear multipolar nature, which are eroding the “unipolar foundations” (starting with the dominance of the dollar and the western capacity for influence in the four corners of the globe).

In this regard, it is possible to list, among others: BRICS+ at the global level (an organisation in which Turkey is also absolutely interested), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Asia (with significant developments around the globe), AlianzaBolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América – Tratado de Comercio de los Pueblos (ALBA – TCP) and Comunidad del losEstadosLatinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC) in Latin America and the Caribbean, The Confederation of Sahel States (AES) in Africa.

“Divide et Impera” has in fact always been the preferred plan of the great totalising and alienating empires. It is up to the “multipolar puzzle” not to fall into the trap and to join forces to ensure a transition that lives up to the expectations and hopes of the vast majority of humanity.

Thank you all for your attention.

FOTOGALLERY