Over a decade ago, Turkey-Syria relations have undergone a dramatic shift when then Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) decided to end their policy of ‘zero problems with the neighbors’ and interfered in the uprising in Syria. The AKP’s overly ambitious Neo-Ottomanism and revolutionary aspirations, coupled with military activism and Iranian-style proxy warfare campaigns in its neighboring country proved to be a disastrous mixture. Today, Erdogan has no other choice but to return to his Syria policy before the Arab Spring: seeking rapprochement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
