Fall of Aleppo is Ankara’s real concern

The government opened its borders for the transfer of the first units of Iraqi Kurdish fighters to pass through Turkish territory to the Syrian town of Kobane (or, officially, Ayn al-Arab) near the Turkish border yesterday, Oct. 30.

Their forces and heavy arms (like anti-tank, anti-aircraft and heavy machine guns) will join some 2,000 Syrian Kurdish fighters there resisting the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), which have been attacking the town for over a month.

The total number of Peshmerga forces will only be 150 when the transfer is complete in a few days’ time - it is merely symbolic support.

Actually, the original number was 2,000 when the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, which is holding Kobane for the time being and is a sister organization of the Turkey-based outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), asked for help.

But Iraqi Kurdish fighters loyal to Masoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, were not the original choice of support for the PYD/PKK. They wanted either Turkey to supply heavy arms to them, or for PYD/PKK fighters to be allowed to use Turkish territory to enter Kobane. These requests came despite the PKK’s three-decade armed campaign against Turkish governments, and the fact that one of the PKK’s most notorious military leaders, Fehman Hussein (aka Bahoz Erdal), a Syrian Kurd, is reportedly in charge of the resistance in Kobane.

During a telephone conversation on the night of Oct. 18-19, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told U.S. President Barack Obama that Turkey could open its borders for the passage of either the Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces, also fighting against Bashar al-Assad, or Peshmerga forces.

The PYD...

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