Somehow, Turkey has decided it needs considerable logistics and air strike capabilities to fight in Syria against ISIS, and that should come from the US. Now we might be able to speculate about how this came to be because it comes very close behind the ill-advised announcement of a withdrawal by US forces from Syria. That came after the two presidents talked, though about what nobody seems to know.
So it seems that neither the president of the US or Turkey has a good grasp of what was required to be done to meet the objectives. Their respective staffs have huddled and briefed their chains of command on what the Presidents should have known before they agreed to whatever it was they agreed to. So, now the US is not going to withdraw all of its support forces in Syria, and Turkey is not going to invade Syria without a lot of additional help from the US. Neither of the Presidents looks good on this.
Turkey was up to the brink of invading the North of Syria again, which appeared to be a bad situation for US troops there, and a worse one for the Kurds. Turkey said it was fighting terrorists, which is what they call all Kurds whether they are or not. The Russians helped Turkey win over some territory around Russian bases in the northwest of Syria. That seemed to have gone well, but either the Russians were not doing it again, or Turkey never asked. They did ask the US - finally. All that should have been done before any announcements about what either country was going to do.
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