Yet despite noticeably closer ties, Turkey and Iran are far from being friends. Given their opposing stances on the future of Syria and both countries’ wider ambitions for regional influence, they are likely to lock horns in the future. But as partners of the moment, they are ideally suited.

With HTS on one side and the regime on the other, the FSA seems to be facing an untenable situation in Idlib, unless Turkey stages a full-scale intervention there as well. The endgame is still not clear. What is clear is that the FSA’s original hopes of deposing al-Assad are all but dead.

It appears their preliminary success has not been lost on Israel’s educational establishment. In 2016, Israel’s Ministry of Education mandated Arabic language classes, beginning in first grade, in public schools where Hebrew is the language of instruction. This move generated opposition and has not yet led to fully bilingual education.

‘Russia’s de-escalation zones are now crumbling, as all major actors inside and outside Syria now seek to define the terms of the “post-IS” reality,’ he wrote. ‘Without major international effort, further regime chemical attacks, indiscriminate bombing and the targeted destruction of civil facilities are likely to continue unabated.’

Assad will happily take more freebies from the EU. For the regime, reconstruction is to serve, first and foremost, its own consolidation as well as ensure the permanenceof social and demographic shifts and strengthen the loyalty of its citizens. A view espoused by the Assad regime and echoed in international aid meetings warns that Europe will lose out to Moscow and Tehran unless European nations help in the reconstruction of Syria.

Although the European Union had, in April 2017, ruled out support for reconstruction without a political transition, calls have now been mounting in Europe to accommodate Bashar al-Assad, help in the reconstruction of Syria, and send back refugees.

Since the defeat of IS, steps have to be taken to rebuild, physically and morally, a nation that has once again been shattered. These elections could be another of those steps, but all the signs indicate that they will do little more than maintain the status quo, with the real issues facing Iraqis once again going unaddressed.

As painful as Zarrab’s testimony must have been for some in Ankara, the revelations seem to have done little to rock the foundations of the current Turkish government, and Erdogan’s hold on power looks secure. However, the case comes amid the worst deterioration of US-Turkish relations for decades, and its fallout is unlikely to be over.

The threat posed to Hatay by the PKK and its Syrian affiliates was highlighted again in January 2018, when the Turkish army and Turkish-backed forces attacked Afrin. Whether the threat was exaggerated to justify the Afrin operation is difficult to say, but once again Hatay has found itself, through no fault of its own, on the sidelines of war.

Since the operation in Afrin began, Turkey has been quick to exploit the international concern about the Islamist group, asserting that it is fighting IS as well as the YPG in the area. Turkey’s state news agency reported that ‘the PYD/PKK terror group has released all Daesh [IS] prisoners under the condition that they will fight against the Turkish army and Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Syria’s Afrin region’.