Turkish officials have been harping about the creation of a “buffer zone” in northern Syria for quite some time, and that hasn’t stopped. The idea is to militarily occupy part of northern Syria, and herd the Syrian refugees that have flocked to Turkey into that area instead.
While on the one hand couched as a “humanitarian corridor,” officials have also presented it as a place the Syrian rebels could operate with impunity, as a way to further destabilize the Assad government. It’s a plan rife with problems which would create an open-ended ground occupation in the region.
The good news is that Turkey isn’t on the verge of trying to do this unilaterally, with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu saying that it is “unrealistic” to expect Turkey to launch a unilateral ground operation into Syria.
France has endorsed the idea of a buffer zone, but the Hollande government has not committed troops to actually creating it, nor does it seem likely that any other nation is going to step up with boots on the ground for Turkey’s plan. So long as the Turkish position remains that they don’t want to have to create this buffer zone by themselves, the plan itself seems unlikely to be followed through on.
Turkey is pushing an "Assad First" strategy, much like Germany First in WW2.
For Turkey, the buffer zone offers many advantages: it moves the refugee problem out of Turkey, it creates a government for Syria up and running on Syrian territory in a form Turkey likes which can contest fo control of Syria, and it creates that Turkish government design INSTEAD OF A KURDISTAN.
Turkey argues that ISIS can only be defeated when the jihadi drive against Assad is removed, taking much of the steam out of the ISIS appeal. Otherwise, the existence of Assad keeps ISIS going too.
Now these are some self-serving points. But, they may also be correct. We cannot offer a credible way to defeat ISIS first, fighting both sides from the middle as ISIS goes on with political wind in its sails.
If we don't want to do it Turkey's way, we'll have to offer a credible, comprehensive alternative strategy, not just some bombing missions and demands for Turkey to do what we don't want to do ourselves on the ground.
France is not the only government pushing for the idea, NATO's neo chief is second in line and be sure that USG sooner or later will join in unless they change their mind and going to start Assad, Iran, Iraq to fight these illegitimate sons of Saudis, Jordanian King and UAE.