This is John Batchel, a conversation with my good colleague, Gregory Copley of Defense and Foreign Affairs,

about the possibility of an exchange between Turkey controlling Syria and Moscow, the Kremlin.

It would look like this.

Bashar Assad is given over to Syria, controlled by Turkey, for a war crimes trial and an execution.

In exchange, Russia gets to retain its air base and its naval base in Syria.

This is Turkey running the show, the HTS in Damascus, the man who calls himself either Al-Sherah or Al-Jolani.

He's a creature of the MIT.

That's Turkish intelligence, secret police.

All of this is acted out on a world stage because Mr. Erdogan of Turkey is a neo-Ottomanist.

He's expanding his reach from Libya to right now as far as Syria, but he can reach into

Mesopotamia as well.

So, will Assad be given up by Russia?

Gregory speaks to that and speaks to a story that Assad's been ill. Ill with what? Anyway, we're waiting for more from Syria, darkness visible,

and here's Gregory on the possibility of an exchange, a naval and air base for Assad.

More of this tonight.

Well, it's definitely moving into the area of instability. I think that Russia will be very reluctant to return Bashar al-Assad to Turkish custody

or send him into Turkish custody for trial as a war criminal,

because that would end a lot of the credibility of Russia as an independent player

and make it look as though Russia was kowtowing to Ankara.

So, and hence these latest reports that former President Assad may have been poisoned

and is ill in Moscow and in hospital, that may be part of a move to ensure that he can't be moved

and he can be quietly sort of put out to pasture

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