
A Turkish military infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), followed by a battle tank, is seen along the M4 highway in northern Syria on March 15, 2020.
Turkey is signaling its willingness to use proxies to secure its interests in Syria’s Idlib Province, but the positioning of Russian and Syrian forces will limit the likelihood of deeper Turkish military engagement. In an address to legislators on Oct. 28, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that a recent attack against Turkish-backed rebel fighters in Idlib was proof that Russia was not interested in peace, as it deliberately undermined the tenuous cease-fire Ankara and Moscow reached in March. Erdogan also reiterated his government’s interventionist policy in Syria designed to clear Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) militants from Turkey’s border. On Oct. 26, suspected Russian airstrikes targeted a camp in northwest Syria run by Failaq al-Sham, one of the main Turkey-backed rebel factions, which has reportedly also sent forces to Azerbaijan to help fight against Russia-allied Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict .