Nato to hold crisis talks over ISIL threat to Turkey

Tensions across Turkey are high, with police routinely using water cannons to disperse nightly protests in Istanbul and other cities denouncing ISIL and the government's policies on Syria. Bulent Kilic/AFP PhotoShow less

BEIRUT // Nato ambassadors will hold crisis talks in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss how to counter the threat to Turkey from ISIL militants in northern Syria.

Turkey called the emergency session, only the fifth in the alliance’s 66-year history when a Nato member believes its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” is at risk.

It follows an ISIL suicide bombing near the border with Syria that killed 32 people and an ISIL attack on Turkish forces in which one soldier died.

The Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he would use the meeting to spell out in detail the security threats his country faces. “We expect solidarity and support from our Nato allies.”

The United States and Turkey are also working on plans to provide air cover for Syrian rebels to drive ISIL militants from a strip of land along the Turkish border. The campaign would bolster Turkey’s security and provide a haven for civilians.

Turkey has been a reluctant member of the coalition against ISIL, but in a dramatic reversal last week Ankara gave the alliance access to its air bases and bombarded ISIL targets in Syria.

The Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the US and Turkey agreed on the need for an ISIL-free zone along the border. “What we have now is air coverage to clear a region from Daesh and support the moderate opposition so they can gain control of that region,” he said.

“We do not want to see Daesh on Turkey’s borders.”

The joint action is likely to be complicated by Turkish attacks on Kurdish fighters in Syria, who control most of the 910-kilometre border and have warned Ankara against any military intervention in northern Syria.

In a series of cross-border strikes since Friday, Turkey has not only targeted ISIL but also Kurdish fighters affiliated with forces battling the extremists in Syria and Iraq.

The Syrian Kurds are among the most effective ground forces battling ISIL and have been helped by US-led air strikes, but Turkey fears they could revive an insurgency against Ankara in pursuit of an independent state.

Syria’s main Syrian Kurdish militia – the People’s Protection Units, or YPG – is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and maintains bases in remote parts of northern Iraq.

On Tuesday Mr Cavusoglu refused to draw a distinction between ISIL and the PKK.

“There is no difference between PKK and Daesh. You can’t say that PKK is better because it is fighting Daesh,” he said. The PKK is fighting ISIL “for power, not for peace, not for security”.

In other developments, the YPG said Turkish troops shelled a Syrian village near the border, targeting Kurdish fighters. They said the Sunday night shelling on the border village of Til Findire targeted one of their vehicles. Til Findire is east of the border town of Kobani, where the Kurds handed a major defeat to ISIL earlier this year.

But Turkish officials insisted their forces were only targeting the ISIL group in Syria, and the PKK in neighbouring Iraq.

An Ankara official said Turkey returned fire after Turkish soldiers at the border were fired upon, in line with Turkey’s rules of engagement. “The Syrian Kurds are not a target of the operations. Our operations only target ISIL in Syria and PKK in Iraq,” he said.

He said authorities were “investigating claims that the Turkish military engaged positions held by forces other than ISIS”.

The YPG did not say whether there were casualties in the shelling. The YPG said Turkey first shelled Til Findire on Friday, wounding four fighters of the rebel Free Syrian Army and several local villagers. It urged Turkey to “halt this aggression and to follow international guidelines”.

But the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four fighters were wounded in the village of Zor Maghar, which is also close to the Turkish border.

Syria’s main Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, warned Turkey this month that any military intervention would threaten international peace and its armed wing, the YPG, would respond to any “aggression”.

Turkish police on Tuesday raided homes in Ankara and arrested at least 15 people suspected of links to ISIL.

Turkey has arrested hundreds of people with suspected links to violent extremists.

* Associated Press