Civilians and journalists watch the battle in Kobani from Turkey. Yahoo/Getty.
In a major reversal Turkey will allow reinforcement and re-supply for Kurdish forces in the Syrian town of Kobani. Yahoo/Reuters. Turkey will allow Iraqi Kurds to travel to the besieged town as Americans dropped supplies to the trapped fighters. Turkey has been extremely reluctant to allow any help to the Syrian Kurds due to their affiliation with Turkey's old enemy the Kurdish PKK, who have fought a decades long insurgency against them. Originally the Turks refused to help Kobani unless the United States agreed to strike Bashar Al-Assad's forces in addition to ISIS targets. It is unknown why the Turks changed their mind. Turkish Prime Minster Erdogan considers both the PKK and the Syrian Kurds PYD groups to be terrorist organizations and questions how America can help them.
My Comment:
The key to this story is that Turkey is only allowing Iraqi Kurds to fight in Kobani. They have a much better relationship with Turkey then the Syrian Kurds. That isn't saying much mind you, but they probably think they can control them better then the Syrian Kurds. Plus they have to be happy that two of their enemies, the Kurds and ISIS are fighting to the death in Kobani. They have domestic concerns as well since protests against their inaction have killed many people.
Still this is a major change in Turkish policy. As late as yesterday everyone believed that the Turks would never allow the Kurds to cross the border to fight ISIS unless Obama struck Bashar Al-Assad's forces. I can't imagine that Obama would agree to that, America doesn't want a war with ISIS. And the Democratic Party doesn't want a new war right before mid-term elections. There must have been some kind of diplomatic breakthrough to allow this to happen. Either that or the reports are wrong. Because there seems to be no chance of U.S. strikes on Assad.
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