Ankara’s zigzagging between its fading regional ambitions, national security priorities, the conditions set by its partners in the Astana process and the realities on the ground continue to shift Turkish policy in Syria. The Turkish deployment in Idlib — part of the latest de-escalation zone agreement in Astana — comes as another product of those vacillations and the narrow room Ankara has to maneuver.

Ever since the 1991 Gulf War, Turkish political movements like the ruling Justice and Development Party have upheld the creed that Turkey needs to be actively involved to avoid harm from turmoil in the Middle East.

Operation Euphrates Shield — the seven-month military campaign that Turkey conducted in northern Syria in a bid to block Kurdish advances under the guise of fighting the Islamic State (IS) — was quite gratifying for the government. Involvement on the ground was finally achieved, leading Ankara to assume it will have a say in Syria’s future and prevent a “Kurdish corridor” along its southern borders. The Idlib deployment is driven by the same two objectives: having a say in the political negotiations that will shape Syria’s future and besieging Afrin, the western part of the Kurdish corridor.

Now that the armed rebellion in Syria is dying down, the primary objective is to prevent a full-blown political debacle for Ankara, which has backed the rebels for the past six years. So what is the purpose of the military deployment in Idlib city? Is it to defeat the jihadi groups, a potential threat to Turkey as well, and lay the ground for the Syrian army retaking control of the region, or to prop up allied armed groups against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), in the crosshairs as a terrorist group? Turkey's objective of derailing the Kurdish autonomy drive is beyond doubt.