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.
![MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA People inspect a site hit by airstrikes at a parking garage in the rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah - RTSW2U6](/sites/default/files/styles/article_hero_medium/public/almpics/2017/01/RTSW2U6.jpg/RTSW2U6.jpg?h=077ac243&itok=g1ygH7yt)
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.