Analysis
Smart, independent reporting on Turkey's politics, economy and foreign affairs.
As the Peace Commission moves toward drafting its final document — and as legislation looms on the horizon — the key question is whether parliament can transform overlapping objectives into a shared roadmap, or whether the process will once again stall at the fault line between security-first sequencing and demands for democratic and political normalization.
The Syrian opposition's major advances in the last ten days, especially the capture of Aleppo, the second biggest city in Syria, caught not only the international community off guard but also surprised Syrians themselves. The opposition launched Operation “Deterrence of Aggression” on Nov. 27 to end the regime’s attacks on its strongholds in northwest Syria and facilitate the return of at least one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their towns in Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama. These towns had been captured by the regime in 2020 in violation of the Astana Process agreed upon by Turkey, Russia, and Iran. The operation successfully achieved its planned objectives within the first four days. However, everything that has occurred since then has been unplanned and unexpected.