Things will come to a head on Monday when Russia hosts the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi. Sochi, not Geneva, is the forum where the endgame for the Syrian proxy war will be decided.
Damascus is on board. So is Tehran. Ankara may also be, as long as it reins in those "moderate rebels" it controls in Idlib province and brings them to the table in Sochi. And Moscow was happy to back Olive Branch; one day after the operation was launched, Russia announced a final list of Sochi attendants. Of course, Turkey was on it.
The bottom line is the Kremlin has Erdogan on board, but he will have to tread a fine line. Moscow is unlikely to sacrifice a prime piece of Syrian real estate, along with carefully choreographed relations with Tehran and Damascus, for Ankara to deliver a bunch of Sunni hardliners to the Sochi table.
"Terror organization"For its part, Ankara announced that "our operations will continue until the separatist terror organization, the YPG [Yekineyen Parastina Gel], is fully cleared from the region and around 3.5 million Syrians who are now sheltered in Turkey are able to securely return to their homeland."
From Ankara's perspective, this implies there will be no US-backed Syrian Kurd statelet. In turn, this is bad news for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which trusted Washington's balkanization gambit and were trained by US special forces.
If that was not bad enough, the SDF is also accusing the Russians of treason. NATO's southern command is in disarray, with question marks hanging over the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The US needs Ankara's cooperation to use it.
NATO also needs Turkey for access to the Black Sea for any future operations against Russia and Crimea. What is absolutely certain is that the Sochi Three -- Russia, Iran and Turkey -- have all agreed that Washington should have no influence in Syria.
In this latest chapter of the New Great Game, Turkey is bang in the middle. It will now depend on Russia and Iran for energy, with Moscow building power stations and delivering an S-400 missile defense system to Ankara.
Turkish trade will also involve China's New Silk Road, or the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Eurasia Economic Union of Iran, Russia, Central Asia and China. "Go East" -- not West -- will now be the mantra.
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