Russia might be indirectly encouraging Turkey to advance toward Syria’s northeastern town of Manbij while further sidelining Washington from the Syrian scene after President Donald Trump voiced his plans to withdraw US troops from Syria, sources familiar with the situation hinted after a summit on Syria last week in Turkey.
All eyes were on the tripartite Syria meeting that gathered the top leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey on April 4 in Ankara, where they met to discuss how to end the war in Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have somehow maintained an unlikely alignment for the past year and a half despite their diverging end games in Syria.
Turkey wants to keep Iran at bay, limit its influence in Syria and has long wanted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to be ousted. Russia wants closer ties with Turkey, but also needs the current Syrian regime in place to maintain its military bases, dominate the eastern Mediterranean and control Syrian airspace. Iran also needs Assad in place to maintain its supply lines to Islamist militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon and establish a secure corridor to Lebanon via Iraq and Syria, and thus wants to keep Turkey away from the latter two.
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
