Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Senior Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute.
Articles & Testimony
A deep dive into the evolution of Turkey’s Middle East policy and the mixed results it has had in two Russian-fueled conflict zones.
Recent clashes between Turkish and Turkish-backed Syrian forces and the Assad regime in Syria’s Idlib province have brought to question the viability of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regional pacts with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. While the latter is focused on consolidating Assad’s control across Syria, he also wants to get along with Erdogan, and Erdogan with him. His rapport with Putin notwithstanding, Erdogan has significant challenges at home, where the Turkish economy is slowing down, and overseas, where Turkey’s military is over-stretched, from Syria to Libya. This is not what Erdogan expected when he launched an ambitious foreign policy agenda earlier in the 2010s...
