Zone of the Near East (4)
I believe the answer is:
area
'zone' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'of the near east' is the wordplay.
'of' says the answer is hidden in the clue.
'AREA' is hidden within 'near east'.
(Other definitions for area that I've seen before include "Geographical region" , "The measure of a surface" , "Extent of a 2-dimensional surface" , "topic" , "Territory" .)