ISTANBUL — The United States dispatched a senior diplomat to Turkey on Monday for talks aimed at averting a unilateral invasion by the Turkish military into northern Syria as tensions near a boiling point following Ankara’s acquisition of a Russian-made missile system that its NATO partners fear foreshadows a split with the West.
A delegation led by James Jeffrey, the US special envoy on Syria, was in Ankara to meet Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and Foreign Ministry officials. It was not clear what the talks had produced at the time of publication.