ANKARA, Turkey — In their eight-point Moscow Declaration of Dec. 20, Russia, Iran and Turkey asserted that their priority in Syria is a political solution and pledged joint efforts to that effect. For Turkey, the declaration amounted to relinquishing what it had advocated in Syria since 2011, including Ankara's refusal to recognize President Bashar al-Assad’s government and Turkish ambitions to topple it.

According to Erdogan Toprak, a senior lawmaker for Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Moscow Declaration “confirmed the bankruptcy” of the Syrian policy that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had pursued.

In a Dec. 27 statement, Toprak said, “On the Syrian question, the government has come to the point that the [CHP] has advocated from the very beginning. The process has proven us right. Erdogan and the AKP government, who were eager to topple Assad in three months and perform Friday prayers at the Umayyad Mosque [in Damascus], had labeled us traitors when we sent a delegation to Damascus, expended efforts for a solution and criticized their Syrian policy.” Ankara, according to Toprak, has acquiesced to Russia's and Iran's strengthening their influence in the region, especially in Syria.

The regional rivalry between Turkey and Iran seems to be the “weakest link” in the Moscow troika. Standing on opposing sides in Syria and Iraq until last month, the two neighbors are involved in a power struggle not only in the Middle East but in the Caucasus and Central Asia as well. Thus, harmony and joint action in Syria might prove difficult for them. It’s safe to predict that Turkish-Iranian rivalry will cause troubles for the troika.