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Ankara’s acknowledgment of intelligence contacts with Damascus had raised expectations of a shift in its Syria policy, but recent Turkish moves suggest that such a prospect remains distant and Ankara remains bent on cementing its grip on Syrian territories under its military control.
Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decreed the establishment of two educational facilities in al-Rai, a small northern Syrian town just across the border. The town — home mostly to ethnic Turks known as Turkmens — is called Cobanbey in Turkish. The Cobanbey Medical Faculty and the Cobanbey Vocational School of Health Services would operate as branches of the Istanbul-based University of Health Sciences, Erdogan said in the Feb. 5 decree.
