Turkey’s aggressive push to form a new coalition to combat remnants of the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) and supplant the Pentagon’s Kurdish partners, who are currently in that role, is continuing apace, Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Nuh Yilmaz told parliament in a special session on Tuesday. Jordan, Iraq and Syria’s new interim government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander, are expected to take part in the effort, Yilmaz said. The minutes of the session were posted late Tuesday.

“In order to ensure [ISIS] does not threaten Syria and Iraq again, we are forming a four-way coalition. This coalition will include all options, from intelligence sharing to joint operations,” he said.  

Iraq and Jordan are the main logistical hubs for Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led global coalition that is partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to destroy ISIS remnants and oversee detention centers and internment camps, where thousands of ISIS fighters and their families are being held. Turkey, which has more than 20,000 troops deployed in Syria, says it can take over the job. Turkey “has made concrete proposals on almost all issues that could arise with respect to the United States’ security needs, including the management of prisons housing [ISIS] members,” Yilmaz told the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs ahead of an international conference on Syria that is due to be held in Paris on Thursday. 

Counted among Fidan’s most trusted lieutenants, Yilmaz will represent Turkey at the Paris event, where he will likely shop the Turkish plan. The conference will be the first such gathering since the Trump administration took office and the third of its kind since the fall of the Assad regime in December. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani, UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pederson, and senior State Department official Tim Lenderking — who is standing in for Joel Rayburn, the Trump administration's nominee for assistant secretary for near east affairs — are expected to attend.