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ISTANBUL, Nov. 14-- The deal struck by Russian and U.S. leaders last week on settling the crisis in Syria is a blow to Turkey, forcing Ankara to overhaul its position about how to navigate the Arab country out of a war that has raged on for years, analysts told Xinhua. The U.S.-Russian joint statement created the impression that Turkey has been left out of the game in Syria, observed Cahit Armagan Dilek, director of the Ankara-based 21st Century Turkey Institute. The joint statement goes counter to Ankara's plan to move militarily against Kurdish militia in Syria's Afrin, exclude them from the peace process and eliminate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as illegitimate. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday expressed his dissatisfaction with the joint statement which excludes military option, except against the Islamic State (IS), in the resolution of the Syrian conflict. "If a military solution is out of the question, then they should pull their troops out," he told the press in Istanbul before leaving for Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin. "The (U.S. and Russian) presidents agreed that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria," said the joint statement posted on Saturday on the Kremlin's website, which promotes a political solution to the Syrian conflict through negotiations to be held in Geneva. Such a development makes it difficult for Ankara to carry out a big military operation against Afrin, which has been broached time and again by top Turkish officials and seen probable by many analysts. | 
