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Turkey to let Iraqi Kurds reinforce Kobani as US airdrops arms US drops weapons and ammunition to help Kurdish fighters in Kobani
(about 2 hours later)
Turkey says it will allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to reinforce fellow Kurds in the Syrian border town of Kobani, while the US has airdropped arms for the first time to help those resisting the assault by Islamic State (Isis). The US military has dropped weapons, ammunition and medical aid to Kurdish forces defending Kobani against Islamic State (Isis) militants, while Turkey has said it will allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to reinforce the Syrian border town.
Washington said the arms had been supplied by Iraqi Kurdish authorities and had been dropped near Kobani – which came under Isis attack in September, and is now besieged to the east, west and south. The town borders Turkey to the north. Following several weeks of air strikes by the US-led coalition in and around Kobani, the air drops were the first time weapons and ammunition had been provided to local Kurdish forces.
Speaking in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Monday, US secretary of state John Kerry said the Obama administration decided to airdrop weapons and ammunitions to “valiant” Kurds because it would be “irresponsible” and “morally very difficult” not to support them. According to Lahur Jangi Talabani, director of the intelligence agency of the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, 24 tons of small arms and ammunition and 10 tons of medical supplies were delivered to Kobani in three US C-130 cargo planes on Sunday.
Turkey has stationed tanks on hills overlooking Kobani, but it has refused to help the Kurdish militias on the ground without striking a broader deal with its Nato allies on intervening in the Syrian civil war. It says action should also be taken against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The weapons were all supplied by the autonomous Kurdish authorities in Iraq. Turkish media reported that the US military did not use Turkish air space for the airdrops.
However, the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, told a news conference on Monday that Turkey was facilitating the passage of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, which have also fought Isis when the militants attacked the Kurds’ autonomous region in Iraq over the summer. He gave no further details. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said on Monday the Obama administration decided to airdrop weapons and ammunitions to “valiant” Kurds because it would be “irresponsible” and “morally very difficult” not to support them.
Turkey’s refusal to intervene in the battle against Isis, which has seized large areas of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, has led to growing frustration in the US. Meanwhile the Turkish government said on Monday it would help Kurdish fighters from northern Iraq cross the Turkish border into Syria to fight in Kobani.
The policy has also provoked riots in south-eastern Turkey by Kurds furious at Ankara’s refusal to help Kobani or at least open a land corridor for volunteer fighters and reinforcements to go there. Ankara has been under increasing international pressure to provide more than humanitarian aid to refugees fleeing the violence in northern Syria. Kurdish politicians in Syria and Turkey have urged the Turkish government to allow for the passage of fighters and weapons into Kobani through its borders, but so far Ankara has refused all such demands.
Ankara views the Syrian Kurds with deep suspicion because of their ties to the PKK, a group that waged a decades-long militant campaign for Kurdish rights in Turkey. It views the Syrian Kurds with deep suspicion because of their ties to the PKK, a group that waged a decades-long militant campaign for Kurdish rights in Turkey.
Kerry told reporters in Jakarta that the administration understood Turkey’s concerns about supplying the Kurds, but said the situation is such in Kobani that the resupplies were deemed absolutely necessary in a “crisis moment”. Kerry told reporters in the Indonesian capital Jakarta that the US administration understood Turkey’s concerns about supplying the Kurds, but said the situation is such in Kobani that the resupplies were deemed absolutely necessary in a “crisis moment”.
“Let me say very respectfully to our allies the Turks that we understand fully the fundamentals of their opposition and ours to any kind of terrorist group and particularly obviously the challenges they face with respect [to] the PKK,” Kerry said. “But we have undertaken a coalition effort to degrade and destroy Isil [another acronym for Islamic State], and Isil is presenting itself in major numbers in this place called Kobani.”“Let me say very respectfully to our allies the Turks that we understand fully the fundamentals of their opposition and ours to any kind of terrorist group and particularly obviously the challenges they face with respect [to] the PKK,” Kerry said. “But we have undertaken a coalition effort to degrade and destroy Isil [another acronym for Islamic State], and Isil is presenting itself in major numbers in this place called Kobani.”
Kerry said the militants had chosen to “make this a ground battle, attacking a small group of people there who while they are an offshoot group of the folks that our friends the Turks oppose, they are valiantly fighting Isil and we cannot take our eye off the prize here”. Kerry said the militants had chosen to “make this a ground battle, attacking a small group of people there who, while they are an offshoot group of the folks that our friends the Turks oppose, they are valiantly fighting Isil and we cannot take our eye off the prize here”.
“It would be irresponsible of us, as well morally very difficult, to turn your back on a community fighting Isil as hard as it is at this particular moment,” he said. He said: “It would be irresponsible of us, as well morally very difficult, to turn your back on a community fighting Isil as hard as it is at this particular moment.”
Earlier the US central command said it had delivered weapons, ammunition and medical supplies to allow the Kurdish fighters to keep up their resistance in the town, which is called Kobani in Kurdish and Ayn al-Arab in Arabic. The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavusoğlu, said the operation was in line with a wider regional effort to fend off Isis, and added that Turkey was ready to allow Iraqi Kurdish forces to cross into Syria.
The main Syrian Kurdish armed group, the YPG, said it had received “a large quantity” of ammunition and weapons. “We want the region to be cleared of all threats. We assess the military and medical materials aid provided by our Iraqi Kurdish brothers and airdropped by the United States to all forces defending Kobani in this framework”, he said. “There are seven or eight groups that are fighting together with the PYD [the main Syrian Kurdish political group]. The Iraqi-Kurdish regional authorities have also declared that they are cooperating to help Kobani,” Çavusoğlu said. “We are helping peshmerga forces to cross into Kobani. Our discussions regarding that issue are ongoing.” 
Rêdûr Xelîl, a YPG spokesman, said the overnight weapons drop would have a “positive impact” on the battle and the morale of fighters who have been out-gunned by Isis. But he added: “Certainly it will not be enough to decide the battle. Some observers pointed out that the perceived policy shift in Ankara was no surprise. Pointing to a string of violent protests that shook Turkey two weeks ago in response to the government’s perceived inaction regarding the crisis in Kobani, Mesut Yegen, a historian of the Kurdish issue, said that Turkey could not risk the fall of the town: “The events from two weeks ago clearly showed that if Kobani should fall, the peace process would end. The Turkish government wanted to test how people would react, and they saw what would have happened. Turkey can no longer be seen as watching the drama in Kobani unfold without doing anything.”
“We do not think the battle of Kobani will end that quickly. The forces [of Isis] are still heavily present and determined to occupy Kobani. In addition, there is resolve [from the YPG] to repel this attack.” Sores Hesen, spokesperson of the Syrian People’s Defence Corps in Kobani, confirmed that US military and medical aid has reached Kobani and thanked “those that sent them”.
He declined to give more details on the shipment. Others were more critical. “The question is also why it took so long to finally deliver military aid to Kobani”, said Özgür Amed, a Kurdish journalist and activist. “Many people here wonder about this. If such aid would have been made weeks ago, Isis would have never been able to make it this far into the town.”
The US began carrying out air strikes against Isis targets in Iraq in August and about a month later started bombing the militant group in neighbouring Syria. Pervin Buldan, a Kurdish MP in the Turkish parliament, said that “Turkey needed to learn a lesson” from the latest developments in Syria.
But the resupply of Kurdish fighters marks an escalation in the US effort to help local forces beat back the radical Sunni militant group in Syria. It points to the growing coordination between the US military and a Syrian Kurdish group that had been kept at arm’s length by the west due partly to the concerns of Turkey. “There should have been military aid from the very start, before people were killed and before this problem had grown this much,” he said. “I think Turkey needs to learn a lesson from this. It would be deplorable if Turkey would remain on the sidelines while the balance in the Middle East is recalibrated. This is why it would have been more meaningful if Turkey would have provided humanitarian, military and logistical aid to Kobani from the very start.”
Washington has pressed Ankara to let it use bases in Turkey to stage the air strikes, and a Turkish foreign ministry official said the country’s airspace had not been used during the drops on Kobani.
Barack Obama gave advance notice to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of the plan to deliver arms to the Syrian Kurds, a group Turkey views with distrust because of its links to Turkish Kurds who have fought an insurgency in which 40,000 people were killed.
“President Obama spoke to Erdoğan yesterday and was able to notify him of our intent to do this and the importance that we put on it,” one senior US official told reporters.
US officials described the weapons delivered as “small arms” but gave no further details.
Escalated US air strikes on Isis in and around Kobani have helped to slow its progress there in the last week. The Kurds say the US military has been coordinating the air strikes with them, helping to make them more effective.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war in Syria using sources on the ground, said there had been two new air strikes on Isis positions after midnight.
In a brief statement, the US Central Command said US air force C-130 aircraft “delivered weapons, ammunition and medical supplies that were provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq and intended to enable continued resistance against Isil’s attempts to overtake Kobani”.
The central command said 135 US air strikes near Kobani in recent days, combined with continued resistance against Isis on the ground, had slowed the group’s advances into the town and killed hundreds of its fighters.
“However, the security situation in Kobani remains fragile as Isil continues to threaten the city and Kurdish forces continue to resist,” the statement said.
The Turkish presidency said Obama and Erdoğan had discussed Syria, including measures that could be taken to stop Isis’s advances, and Kobani.
In a statement published on Sunday, it also said Turkish assistance to over 1.5 million Syrians, including around 180,000 from Kobani, was noted in the conversation.
In comments published by Turkish media on Monday, Erdoğan equated the main Syrian Kurdish political group, the PYD, with the PKK, describing both as terrorist organisations.
“It will be very wrong for America with whom we are allied and who we are together with in Nato to expect us to say yes [to supporting the PYD] after openly announcing such support for a terrorist organisation,” he said.
Kobani is one of three areas near the border with Turkey where Syrian Kurds have established their own government since the country descended into civil war in 2011.