Turkey pressured to lead fight against IS

Source:Agencies Published: 2014-10-10 0:28:01

Heading ground operation against jihadists alone not realistic: Ankara


A Kurdish man looks through binoculars as he watches fighting from a hill at the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern Turkish village of Mursitpinar on Thursday. Advancing Islamic State (IS) fighters seized control of a third of the Syrian border town of Kobane on Thursday, as Turkey rejected sending in troops on its own against the jihadists. Photo: AFP



Turkey on Thursday said it cannot be expected to lead a ground operation against jihadists in Syria alone, amid growing pressure on Ankara from the West to intervene militarily.

"It's not realistic to expect that Turkey will lead a ground operation on its own," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a news conference with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

There has been increasing pressure on key NATO member Turkey to use its military weight against jihadists in Syria but Ankara has so far done nothing despite winning parliamentary authorization for action last week.

The government has said it will only commit to military action if there is a concerted international effort to oust President Bashar al-Assad as well as fight Islamic State (IS) jihadists seeking to take the town of Kobane on Turkey's border.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said a safe zone for refugees, backed up by a no-fly zone, must be created inside Syria if Ankara is to consider military action there.

But the question of imposing a buffer zone in Syria is not being discussed by NATO member states at this stage, Stoltenberg said.

"We discussed this issue today during our meeting here," said Stoltenberg. "It has not been on the table of any NATO discussions yet and it is not an issue which is discussed in NATO."

Stoltenberg appeared to be wary of adding to the pressure on Turkey in public, saying that the IS jihadists posed "a great threat for the Iraqi people, the Syrian people and the region in general."

The US-led coalition on Thursday carried out fresh strikes on IS jihadist positions in the key Syrian town of Kobane.

Two strikes targeted the city's southwest, which is under control of Kurdish forces who have been fighting off a three-week IS advance on the town.

Despite the strikes, IS group jihadists were in control Thursday of more than one-third of Kobane after fierce fighting that left dozens dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Esmat al-Sheikh, head of the Kurdish militia forces in Kobane, said IS fighters had seized about a quarter of the town in the east. "The clashes are ongoing - street battles," he told Reuters.

Meanwhile, over 1,000 Kurds again took to German streets overnight, watched by riot police, a day after 23 people were hurt in clashes between Kurds and radical Muslims, police said Thursday.

Many Kurds have been infuriated by the lack of action against IS by Turkey, which fears the Kobane standoff could lead to the creation of a Kurdish fighting force overlapping the border.

Some Hamburg protesters demanded the release from Turkish jail of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, which fought a three-decade insurgency against Ankara.

Concern has grown in Berlin about a spillover of the tensions to Germany, which is home to about 3 million people with Turkish roots and an estimated 1 million ethnic Kurds.


Newspaper headline: Heading ground operation against jihadists alone not realistic: Ankara


Posted in: Mid-East

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