Frustrated by the Syrian opposition's loss of ground against President Bashar al-Assad, and fearing the empowerment of the Syrian Kurds, Erdogan began to tack toward Moscow and away from its Western alliance partners roughly a year after Ankara shot down the Russian warplane. Turkey is now one of the parties in the Syrian cease-fire negotiations, along with Russia and Iran; its equities are the armed Sunni opposition groups that depend on Ankara. By contrast, the United States, Turkey's traditional ally, was excluded from the negotiations and the pending conference in Astana.
Read Full Article »
