Having been refused a role in the liberation of Mosul from the Islamic State (IS), signs are mounting that Turkey will also be excluded from the approaching operation to liberate Raqqa. Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield has been unable to advance farther than the outskirts of al-Bab in northern Syria, after the Turkish army and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) proxies took that town in February from IS.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s determination to move northeast on to the town of Manbij, which is held by US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and then on to the IS stronghold of Raqqa, in order to carve out a 5,000-square-kilometer (1,930-square-mile) “safe zone,” appears highly unrealistic at this stage, analysts say.

Meanwhile, Russia has blocked any advance by Turkey and the FSA northwest of al-Bab toward the Kurdish-held town of Afrin. Washington and Moscow appear to have effectively hemmed in the Turkish army in a region along the Turkish border, beyond which it is unlikely to be allowed to move because of doubts about Turkish intentions.

Ankara’s reference to a safe zone is widely accepted as a euphemism for a region it wants its Syrian proxies to hold in order to prevent Syrian Kurds from gaining any territory.