Improved Turko-Syrian relations could enable Russia to redeploy more troops from Syria to Ukraine, and they risk an anti-Turkey backlash from Syrian rebels and radicals. On Sept. 16, Turkish media reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told members of his own party that he was disappointed he did not have a chance to meet with Syria's President Bashar al Assad at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit earlier in September. This comment is an abrupt shift from Erdogan's rhetoric early in the Syrian civil war when he called on Damascus to overthrow al Assad. Erdogan's statement followed reports that Turkey's national intelligence chief has been meeting with his Syrian counterpart as recently as mid-September....
