A little over two weeks ago, the defense and intelligence chiefs of Turkey and Syria met face-to-face in Moscow the first such meeting in over a decade. On the surface, this latest flurry of engagement with Assad’s regime is a major development. Were Turkey to decisively shift its Syria policy, the effects would be dramatic. Beyond the hype and speculation, Turkey’s decision to participate in the Moscow meetings is not altogether surprising and it does not represent a wholesale policy reversal. What has changed more recently is Turkey’s impending elections and with them Erdoğan's political calculations.
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