Putin tests Erdogan’s over-reach

Source:Financial Times Date:29Oct2020

But resumed hostilities in Idlib look like a Russian reprisal for Turkey’s intervention in support of Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia over the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr Putin seems to have withdrawn his consent to Turkey’s military presence in northern Syria. It was surely only a matter of time before someone tested Mr Erdogan’s mixture of over-reach and vulnerability. The first to do so is his ally of convenience, Mr Putin. Yet, while Turkey’s interests were always difficult to harmonise with Russia’s, they are not really in alignment with anybody in the Middle East except Qatar, the maverick gas-rich emirate blockaded by its erstwhile Gulf allies since 2017.