Opinion: Turkey’s misguided Syria policy
Turkey has three goals in Syria: eliminating Bashar al-Assad, weakening the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and defeating the Islamic State' (IS). The snag is that these three goals are incompatible, at least in the short term.
If Turkey is serious in its opposition to the Islamic State' as its role in the US-led anti-IS coalition would warrant, it cannot simultaneously counter the Syrian regime and the Kurdish movement.
The moderate' Syrian opposition is hardly decisive. In Kobani, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the military arm of the PKK-affiliated Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), are key. Absent Western boots on the ground, the only way to defeat IS militarily lies precisely in the role played by the Kurds and Assad, unpalatable as this may be for Ankara.
Of Turkey's three foreign policy goals in Syria, only two are genuinely linked to Turkish national security interests.
http://www.dw.de/opinion-turkeys-misguided-syria-policy/a-18036779?maca=en-rss-en-world-4025-rdf