War on the Rocks: “Turkey's Russian Red Light in Syria”

I have a new article out today at War on the Rocks, this time on how Russia – despite Turkish officials’ protests to the contrary – has, in fact, had an effective veto on Turkish military interventions in Syria; and how Moscow has now used that to maneuver Ankara into normalizing with Damascus.

https://warontherocks.com/2022/12/turkeys-russian-red-light-in-syria/

Turkey and Syria's ministers of defense met alongside their Russian counterpart in Moscow this week. It was their first meeting in more than a decade, and a major step towards the normalization of Turkish-Syrian relations.

Moscow has been pushing Ankara to normalize with Damascus for years now. To that end, Russia has used a) its veto on another Turkish ground offensive in Syria and b) Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's insistence on another intervention against Kurdish-led Syrian militants ahead of next year's Turkish elections to finally get normalization in motion.

Turkish officials claim they don't need "permission" or a "green light" to take new counterterrorism action in Syria. But it's not true. For years, Turkey has needed a nod from Russia to intervene in Syria – in the article, I lay out the accumulated evidence – and now Russia has translated that into a political breakthrough.