Erdoğan announces Turkey will allow FSA to Kobane, PYD says talks continue

Three ISIL fighters (L) pray as others inspect a hill in the outskirts of Syrian town of Kobane, as seen from the Mürşitpınar crossing in Şanlıurfa. REUTERS Photo / Kai Pfaffenbach

The Turkish president says the PYD agreed to the passage of 1,300 FSA fighters to the border town of Kobane, while the leader of the Syrian Kurdish group stresses that talks are continuing and no agreement has been reached yet The Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Kurdish group fighting in Syria against jihadists, has agreed to the passage of 1,300 Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters to the Syrian border town of Kobane, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said.

“The PYD said it accepted the passage of 1,300 people from the FSA, and on this topic, right now, our relevant teams are negotiating what the route of their passage should be,” Erdoğan said, during a press conference in the Estonian capital of Tallinn on Oct. 24.

The co-chair of the PYD confirmed the groups are in contact, but asserted that no agreement has been reached yet on the FSA fighters’ passage to the besieged border town.

“We had already established a connection with the FSA, but no such agreement has been reached yet, as Mr. Erdoğan has mentioned,” Salih Muslim told Reuters via phone from Brussels.

Muslim said Oct. 24 that the FSA should open a second front against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) instead of coming to Kobane in support of the Kurdish fighters.

Erdoğan had previously said he proposed to U.S. President Barack Obama that FSA fighters could join the battle against ISIL in Kobane.

In his remarks on Oct. 24, the Turkish president also said he has learned the number of Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters allowed to go to Kobane through Turkey has been decreased to 150 from the initially announced 200.

“As I said before, we told Mr. Obama the main group to be...

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