WORLD_ Obama acts in Kobani despite Turkish opposition

USA TODAY

Obama acts in Kobani despite Turkish opposition

David Jackson and Gregory Korte, USA TODAY 3:53 p.m. EDT October 20, 2014


WASHINGTON — A new U.S. military operation to help Kurdish forces in Syria follows a months-long diplomatic dance between the Obama administration and another interested party: Turkey.

While Obama administration officials cast the latest talks as the United States informing Turkey of its plans, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government said Monday that it would help Kurdish military fighters known as the peshmerga cross its border en route to Kobani, the nearby Syrian town under threat by Islamic State militants.

"We are helping peshmerga forces to enter into Kobani to give support," Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

At the same time, Turkey has repeatedly denied that it has allowed the United States to use Turkish airspace to attack the Islamic State, ruling out the use of the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.

What does Turkey get out of its apparent willingness to allow more support for Kurdish fighters? Officials won't say, but the Turks are known to be seeking more intelligence, military and economic help from the United States. Turkey has also complained that the United States isn't doing enough to help Syrian rebels topple the government of Bashar Assad.

The United States began airdrops of weapons and medical supplies to the Kurds in Kobani hours after Obama spoke with Erdogan by phone, capping a months-long diplomatic effort that also included Vice President Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, among others.

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Obama "was able to notify (Erdogan) of our intent to do this, and the importance that we put on it," said a senior administration official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

There are still things the United States and its allies want from Turkey, officials said, including the use of a Turkish air base, and artillery strikes from Turkish territory.

Under the new arrangement, Turkey is allowing only some Kurds to cross its border into Syria, namely the official Kurdish military known as the peshmerga. Turkey will continue to block members of the Kurdish group called the PKK, which has battled the Turkish government for three decades and been branded a terrorist group.

Secretary of State John Kerry, while visiting Jakarta, Indonesia, to meet with Asian allies about ISIL, made clear that the United States was aware of the Turkish sensitivities.

"Let me just say very, very respectfully to our allies, the Turks, that we understand fully the fundamentals of their opposition and ours to any kind of terrorist group, and particularly, obviously, the challenges they face with respect to the PKK," Kerry said. "And we talked with Turkish authorities — I did, the president did — to make it very, very clear this is not a shift of policy by the United States. It is a crisis moment, an emergency where we clearly do not want to see Kobani become a horrible example of the unwillingness of people to be able to help those who are fighting ISIL."

After a chilly span of six months during which Erdogan complained that he didn't speak to Obama, high-level talks resumed shortly after Obama authorized military strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq in August. Obama held a one-on-one meeting with Erdogan at a NATO summit in Wales in early September, just before the United States expanded airstrikes into Syria against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL.

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Biden has also dealt directly with Erdogan in recent weeks. The two met in New York on Sept. 25, then followed up with a phone call on Oct. 3.

The administration will likely continue pushing Turkey for use of an air base and to launch artillery strikes against Islamic State positions, said Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

The United States isn't the only country involved. Neighboring countries have also been urging Erdogan's government to get into the fight against the Islamic State, calling the militant group a threat to the entire region.

"In part, they're blunting the pressure that's coming from the United States and other quarters," he said.

Follow @djusatoday and @gregorykorte on Twitter.

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