阿拉伯叙利亚通讯社
On 29 November 2016, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of the Republic of Turkey, said that the Turkish military launched its operations in Syria "to end the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad". Days later, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sought to retract his statement; media observers attributed his comment to frustration "due to failure of his government's Syria policies". In an interview with the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency on 8 December, Syria President Bashar Assad challenged Erdoğan's mental sanity. On 20 January 2017, the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, Mehmet Şimşek, said that "we can't say that Assad must go anymore. A deal without Assad isn't realistic."