This is John Batchel.

A conversation with Antel Levin, my colleague, he's at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about Syria.

It is a European concern as well as a Middle East concern because of the millions of refugees that flowed through Turkey starting in 2011 and found their way to Germany, welcomed by Anglo-Marical

in 2015 famously or infamously. The Syrian Turks are everywhere throughout Europe. Are they

returning home? Unknown, unlikely, given the present condition of the Turkish economy.

There are voices in Germany saying, get out, and there's a big election coming in February,

so those voices will get louder.

And I ask Anatole Levin about the refugees and going home, and he has many caveats.

Here's Anatole Levin, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Europe, Syria, refugees,

and the unknowns for 2025.

More of this tonight.

Well, I mean, all I can say is if I were a Syrian refugee in Germany,

I wouldn't be planning to return home any time

very soon, unless, you know, there was a place for me waiting in the Syrian government or

armed forces. I mean, firstly, obviously the situation is so insecure, but also, you know,

Syria is absolutely impoverished and it's not at all clear, you know, whether the new government can change that situation, above all, because it's, you know, its oil and gas is under Kurdish and American control.

Right.