Depends on whom you ask, since "Middle East" is a pretty arbitrary designation. Traditionally I guess it centers around the Arabian peninsula, so the further you get away from Saudi Arabia the less likely a country is Middle Eastern. There are certain linguistic, cultural, religious and economic commonalities among the countries often grouped together under this umbrella, but you'll see one country excluded on one list and another included on another. Turkey or the Ottoman Empire was considered the "Near East" traditionally, the Middle East was the lands of the Arab bedouins and Persians beyond the borders of the Ottoman Empire, and the Far East was China and Japan. But here of course you see Turkey and many former Ottoman states grouped in with the "Middle East." Cyprus belongs in the Middle East about as much as Afghanistan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan or Pakistan do. None of them make the cut here.