Iraqi Kurd fighters to enter Kobani
October 23, 2014
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Iraqi Kurdish authorities had agreed with the main Kurdish group in the Syrian border town of Kobani to send 200 peshmerga fighters through Turkey to help defend the town, which is under siege by "Islamic State" (IS) militants.
"I have learned that they finally reached agreement on a figure of 200 (fighters)," Erdogan told reporters in the Latvian capital, Riga.
The fighters will join an estimated 2,000 Syrian Kurds fighting the jihadist IS group for control of the town close to the Turkish border.
Turkey agreed this week to give passage for Iraqi Kurd peshmerga fighters wanting to help defend Kobani, although it views the main Kurdish force defending the town, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), as the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK has fought a three-decade long battle against Ankara for self-rule that has left 40,000 people dead.
Criticism from Ankara
Erdogan on Thursday described the PYD as a "terrorist organization," and again criticized the US for carrying out an air drop of weapons and medical supplies to Kobani.
"Did Turkey view this business positively? No, it didn't. America did this in spite of Turkey and I told him Kobani is not currently a strategic place for you - if anything it is strategic for us," he said, speaking of a telephone call with US President Barack Obama at the weekend.
He also insisted that some of the weapons had ended up in the hands of the IS jihadists.
Erdogan also questioned what he said was a focus on Kobani - known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab - to the detriment of aid to the rest of Syria, which is embroiled in a three-year civil conflict that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
"Why are they so keen on Kobani, but not on the whole of Syria? That's a question to ask," Erdogan told reporters.
Some 200,000 Kurds have fled Kobani across the border to Turkey ahead of the IS onslaught.
tj/ksb (AFP, Reuters)