It may be too harsh to say that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned empty-handed from his summit in Moscow this week with President Vladimir Putin. On the plus side, there was much talk about having agreed to increase the already burgeoning economic cooperation.

Erdogan, nevertheless, appears not to have gotten much out of this summit with regard to Turkey’s expectations in Syria. He had traveled to Moscow to discuss, as his main priority, northern Syria in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out US forces from the area.

Erdogan hoped to not only get a green light for a cross-border Turkish operation east of the Euphrates against the US-backed People’s Protection Units (YPG) — which Ankara considers a terrorist organization — but to also seek support for a Turkish security zone in the region.

It was clear from the start, though, that the increasingly volatile situation in Idlib — where Turkish forces are also deployed under an agreement between Ankara, Moscow and Tehran — would be Putin’s priority.

The idea for a security zone in northern Syria is also now supported by Washington in an effort to prevent the Turkish army from launching an operation in the region. Washington wants to assuage Ankara’s security concerns regarding the YPG in this way.

Ankara and Washington remain at odds, however, over who should police the security zone if and when it is set up. Ankara says it has to be the Turkish army and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) proxies. Washington wants the US-led international coalition to undertake the task.

Ankara is still threatening to carry out this operation against the YPG, even though the United States has ratcheted up its threats against Turkey if it should do so. Trump threatened last week to “devastate Turkey’s economy” if it attacked Washington’s Kurdish allies.

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