Why Efforts to End Syria War Have Gained New Impetus

Sign up for our Middle East newsletter and follow us @middleeast for news on the region.

After more than a decade of war in Syria, some of the external powers that fed the conflict with money and arms are in talks to put a permanent end to the fighting. Turkey, which backed Syrian rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad, appears to have accepted that he can’t be defeated as long as he has Russian backing. And Gulf states that had spurned Assad are offering to welcome him back into the club of Arab leaders and encouraging him to make peace with Turkey. It’s a frustrating turn of events for the US, which long opposed any effort to rehabilitate Assad.