Turkey’s U-turn boosts peshmerga in Kobani

This comes as the US airdropped weapons and ammunition supplies to Kurdish fighters defending Syrian town of Kobani.

Taken from a hilltop in Mursitpinar on the outskirts of Suruc at the Turkey-Syria border, this photo taken on October 19 shows Kurdish fighters driving a machine gun-fitted pick-up truck, with the flag of The People’s Protection Units – or YPG – the main Kurdish militia in Syria. Levend Ali/AP PhotoShow less

MURSITPINAR // Kurdish peshmerga fighters were ready to cross from Turkey and join the battle for the Syrian border town of Kobani yesterday after a dramatic U-turn in Ankara.

Turkey had refused for months to help Kurds battling ISIL militants for fear of strengthening its own Kurdish separatist movement, the outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

As recently as Sunday the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, again described the group as terrorists.

But yesterday Ankara reversed its position and said it would help Iraqi Kurds to join the fight.

“We are assisting peshmerga forces to cross into Kobani,” said Mevlut Cavusoglu, the foreign minister. “We have no wish at all to see Kobani fall.”

The YPG, the main Syrian Kurdish fighting force in Kobani, were given a further boost yesterday with a US airdrop of weapons, ammunition, food and medical supplies for the defence against a nearly five-week offensive by ISIL.

“The military assistance dropped by American planes at dawn on Kobani was good and we thank America for this support,” YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said. “It will have a positive impact on military operations against the Daesh and we hope for more.”

“Weapons have been sent according to their needs, and this is the first batch, and included heavy weapons,” said Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga spokesman Halgord Hekmat.

There were five more coalition airstrikes in Kobani on Sunday night and yesterday, targeting mortar positions and a lorry. The US-led coalition, which includes UAE warplanes, has carried out more than 135 airstrikes against ISIL targets around Kobani.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground in Syria, said the latest round of fighting between Kurdish militiamen and extremists in Kobani killed at least eight ISIL members.

The US secretary of state John Kerry said yesterday the Obama administration decided to airdrop weapons and ammunitions to “valiant” Kurds fighting ISIL in Kobani because it would be “irresponsible” and “morally very difficult” not to support them.

He said the US government understood its ally Turkey’s concerns about supplying the Kurds, but the situation was such that the resupplies were absolutely necessary in a “crisis moment”.

“Let me say 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,” Mr Kerry said.

“But we have undertaken a coalition effort to degrade and destroy ISIL, and ISIL is presenting itself in major numbers in Kobani.”

Mr Kerry said the militants had chosen to “make this a ground battle, attacking a small group of people who, while they are an offshoot group of the folks that our friends the Turks oppose, they are valiantly fighting ISIL and we cannot take our eye off the prize here.

“It would be irresponsible of us, as well morally very difficult, to turn your back on a community fighting ISIL as hard as it is at this particular moment.”

Turkey yesterday released the last group of Syrian Kurds who were being held on suspicion of having links with the PKK. Authorities had detained almost 300 Kurds who crossed the border from Kobani.

ISIL militants launched their offensive on Kurdish fighters around Kobani on September 16, swiftly pushing them back to the town itself and sparking an exodus of 200,000 refugees over the border into Turkey.

But the Kurds have kept up a dogged resistance on the streets of the town, of which they currently control about half.

* Associated Press and Agence France-Press