Will Erdogan and Assad soon meet to bury the hatchet?
Erdogan’s opportunism, Putin’s weakness, Iran’s distraction, Israel’s vigilance all complicate Syrian endgame.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is teasing a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, brokered by Vladimir Putin. The Russian president had been pressing for a Turkish-Russian reconciliation for years, and the endgame seems closer than ever, propelled by Erdogan’s sense of opportunity as a result of the Ukraine war.
Coming together? On Thursday, Erdogan gave the most upbeat assessment yet of the prospects for a reconciliation with Assad: “As Russia-Turkey-Syria, we have launched a process through the meeting of our intelligence chiefs and defense ministers in Moscow. Then, God willing, we will bring our foreign ministers together trilaterally. Then, depending on the developments, we will come together as leaders.”
