Turkey relents and allows Kurdish forces to join the fight against Islamic State
Following a US weapons drop to Kobane and mounting international pressure, Turkey agreed to allow Kurdish forces to cross its border into Syria.
Smoke and flames rise in Kobane, Syria, following an airstrike Photo: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
By Ruth Sherlock in Gaziantep, and Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent
9:44PM BST 20 Oct 2014
Turkey has bowed to pressure to allow Kurdish forces sent from neighbouring Iraq to cross its border and reinforce the defence of the besieged town of Kobane.
The decision was part of, what was most likely, a deal with the Americans, who dropped arms to the Kurdish forces at the same time.
Turkey had been facing mounting pressure from the US and its allies to intervene in the battle between the Kurds and the jihadists of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Kobane, which sits just over the Turkish border in Syria.
It had stopped both men and weapons from crossing the border.
The fighters defending Kobane mostly belong to the YPG, a militia that is tied to the PKK, the Marxist guerrilla group that has been fighting for greater autonomy from Turkey for three decades and is proscribed as a terrorist movement.
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The Iraqi Kurds meanwhile are close to Turkey and have profound disagreements with both the PKK and YPG, but all the Kurdish factions have now been forced to cooperate in the face of Isil advances across the region.
"Iraq's Kurdish regional government announced that they are in cooperation with Turkey and the US," Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey's foreign minister said at a press conference.
"Actually, we are helping Peshmerga forces to enter into Kobane to give support."
The Turkish block on more fighters entering Kobane sparked furious dissent, which exploded into violent riots earlier this month that saw more than 30 people killed among Turkey's own large Kurdish community.
It has also threatened to derail the fragile but still continuing peace negotiations between Ankara and Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed PKK leader. The PKK threatened to end talks if Kobane fell.
Helping the Peshmerga to join the battle in Kobane allows Ankara to show willing to those who want its intervention, whilst not directly assisting the PKK, with whom it has fought a long and bloody war that has killed more than 40,000 people.
"Whatever weapons are given to the YPG, the Syrian fighters in Kobane, will end up in the hands of the PKK," one senior Turkish official had previously said.
With the US determined to forge ahead with supporting fighters in Kobane, the presence of the Peshmerga ensures that at least some of the weapons will go to Turkey's allies. The weapons were from supplies originally destined for the Peshmerga, which has been armed by both the United States and most recently Germany.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state said he understood the difficulties the move presented for Ankara, but said it would have been "morally very difficult" not to help rebel fighters in Kobane.
"It would be irresponsible of us, as well as morally very difficult, to turn your back on a community fighting Isil," he said at a press conference.
Mr Kerry's words were likely to grate on the thousands of rebels in other parts of Syria, who have fought the Isil jihadists without little to no foreign support.
Cale Salih, an expert on Kurdish politics at the Institute for Integrated Transitions, said the combined air drop and announcement on the Peshmerga was most likely a deal to assuage Turkish and Kurdish feeling simultaneously.
Salih Muslim, head of the PYD, the political arm of the YPG, met Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, last week, as part of attempts to unify the Kurdish resistance in Syria.
He has previously supported rival Kurdish groups in Syria. American C-130 cargo planes made multiple drops of arms and supplies on Monday, the US central Command said.
It was unclear exactly what type of weapons were delivered to the Kurdish fighters who have, with the help of air strikes, managed to push Isil out of most of Kobane.
Barzan Isso, a Kobane-based Kurdish journalist said he had seen the airdrop, and that the bundles included "modern weapons" such as anti-tank missiles, sniper rifles and large amounts of artillery shells in addition to medicines.
He said the Americans dropped the bundles amid heavy wind and that two bundles landed in areas held by the Islamic State group.
Kurdish fighters were able to retrieve one of them while the other was blown up by the Americans from the air, Mr Isso said.
Kurdish leaders speaking from Kobane last week, where they have driven back the Isil fighters with the help of air strikes, had told The Telegraph they were running out of ammunition. They may not welcome the help of the Peshmerga, who have shown themselves to be less resilient in the last few months in the face of Isil than the YPG, which has been fighting jihadists in the Syrian civil war for more than a year.
The US Central Command said the coalition conducted six air strikes near Kobane in the past 24 hours that destroyed IS fighting and mortar positions and a vehicle. It confirmed that one air strike targeted a stray resupply bundle that prevented the supplies from falling into enemy hands.
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