Turkey has become more willing to challenge U.S.’ regional goals as a result of Ankara’s growing ambitions in the region, its distrust in Washington and growing authoritarianism in the country’s leadership, Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence, said in his assessment in a written statement on “worldwide threats” to the U.S. Senate.

Ankara will continue to see the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group at war in Turkey for over 30 years, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a group Ankara sees as an offshoot of the PKK in Syria and the Gülen movement, a religious group led by cleric Fethullah Gülen, who Ankara accuses of orchestrating the July 2016 coup attempt, as existential threats, Coats said on Tuesday.

The report arrives following Turkey’s announcement of a third military operation into Syria targeting the U.S.-backed YPG, as the United States prepares to withdraw troops from the region.

‘’We expect the regime to focus on taking control of the remaining rebel-held territory and reestablishing control of eastern Syria, consolidating gains, rebuilding regime-loyal areas, and increasing its diplomatic ties through 2019 while seeking to avoid conflicts with Israel and Turkey,‘’ the report said, referring to the government of Bashar Assad.

Noting that Syria’s opposition groups, which rely on Turkey for continued support, will likely not be capable of repelling a regime military operation to retake the northern Idlib Province, the report stressed that Damascus will focus increasingly on reasserting control over Kurdish-held areas in the country’s north.

‘’Damascus probably will seek to exploit any security vacuum and Turkish pressure on the Kurds in order to strike a favourable deal with the Kurds while also seeking to limit Turkey’s presence and influence in Syria and reclaim territory in northwestern Syria held by Turkey,‘’ it said.

Addressing the challenge emerging markets—such as Argentina, Brazil, China, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey— amid uncertainty about global economic growth, the report highlighted that since early 2018, investors have pulled capital out of countries such as Turkey, Brazil and India, which has led to an exacerbation of large currency depreciations, ‘’making it more difficult for them to service their US-dollar-denominated debt during the next year.‘’

The Turkish lira lost one-third of its value against the U.S. dollar in 2018. The inflation has eased to 20.3 percent in December from 25.2 percent in October, a 15-year high, while the economy shrank by a quarterly 1.1 percent in the three months to September.

Highlighting that Turkey has foreign debt three times greater than its annual GDP, the report said, among emerging economies that had been facing serious challenges, Argentina had agreed to IMF recommendations for austerity in order to reduce the risks of the investors, while Ankara had been pursuing its own austerity measures.

Turkey has one of the lowest sovereign debt-to-GDP ratios among emerging markets. Its inflation rate is second only to crisis-hit Argentina among major emerging markets. Turkish corporations are also saddled with more than $220 billion of long-term foreign currency loans, which have become more expensive to repay.