The New York Times quotes VP and Hariri Center Director Francis Ricciardone and Hariri Center Senior Fellow Frederic Hof on Turkey’s push for a buffer zone along its border with Syria:
“It would mainly be a place where an alternate government structure would take root and for the training of rebels,” said Frederic C. Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former American envoy to the Syrian opposition.
[…]
Despite Turkey’s reluctance to do more militarily, said Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., who until July was the American ambassador to Turkey and is now the director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, it has significantly increased its support in other ways, such as intelligence sharing and cutting off the flow of terrorist financing.
“I would say we are getting a lot more than we were in the past,” Mr. Ricciardone said.
“Are we satisfied? No,” he added. “But we’re working on it.”