But for Erdogan, the home front is heating up.
Even before the current crisis, the Republican People's Party (CHP) has been demanding that Erdogan brief the parliament about the situation in Idlib, but the President's Justice and Development Party (AKP) voted down the request. The right-wing, nationalist Good Party -- a CHP ally made similar demands, which have also been sidelined.
All the opposition parties have called for direct negotiations with the Assad government.
The worry is that Turkey is drifting toward a war with Syria without any input from the Parliament. On Feb. 12, Erdogan met with AKP deputies and told them that if Turkish soldiers suffered any more casualties -- at the time the death toll was 14 dead, 45 wounded -- that Turkey would "hit anywhere" in Syria. To the opposition that sounded awfully like a threat to declare war.
Engin Altay, the CHP's deputy chair, said "The president has to brief the parliament, Idlib is not an internal matter for the AKP." Altay has also challenged Erdogan's pledge to separate Turkey from the extremist rebels, like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an affiliate of al-Qaeda. "Is this even possible?" he asked, "There is no way to distinguish these from each other."
Turkey made an agreement with Russia in 2018 to allow it to set up observation posts in Idlib if it pledged not to support extremists like Tahrir al-Sham , but Ankara has facilitated the entry of such groups into Syria from the beginning of the war, giving them free passage and supplying them with massive amounts of fertilizer for bombs. In any case, the extremists eliminated any so-called "moderate" opposition groups years ago.
"Turkey said it would disassociate moderate elements from radicals," says Ahmet Kamil Erozan of the Good Party, "but it couldn't do that."
The Kurdish-based progressive People's Democratic Party (HDP) parliamentarian Necdet Ipekyuz charged "Idlib has become a nest for all jihadists. It has turned into a trouble spot for Turkey and the world. And who is protecting these jihadists? Who is safeguarding them?"
Erdogan has jailed many of the HDP's members of parliament and AKP appointees have replaced the Party's city mayors. Tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned, and tens of thousands dismissed from their jobs. The media has largely been silenced through outright repression -- Turkey has jailed more journalists than any country in the world -- or ownership by pro-Erdogan businessmen.
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