Is Turkey’s shift on Assad beginning of the end of Syria’s war?
Turkish deputy prime minister says "we just have to work with what we have"; no sectarian divide in Aleppo; the Syrian Kurdish fault line.
Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said Jan. 20 that the “facts on the ground have changed dramatically, and so Turkey can no longer insist on, you know, a settlement without [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad, and it’s not, you know, realistic. We just have to work with what we have.”
Simsek’s statement came just three days before the Jan. 23 start of the Russian-mediated Syria talks in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Assad said that his objectives for the Astana talks are “about talks between the government and the terrorist groups in order to have a cease-fire and to allow those terrorist groups to join the reconciliations in Syria, which means giving up your armaments and having amnesty from the government. This is the only thing that we can expect in the meantime.”
The United States will not send a delegation to Astana, and will be represented at the conference by the American ambassador in Kazakhstan, who will attend as an observer.
