Iraqi Kurds Approve Deploying Forces to Kobane As Erdogan Says U.S. Airdrops 'Wrong'
Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers Wednesday approved the deployment of security forces to the Syrian border town of Kobane to help Kurds battling jihadists from the Islamic State group, the parliament speaker said.
"The Kurdistan parliament decided to send forces to Kobane with the aim of supporting the fighters there and protecting Kobane," Yusef Mohammed Sadeq said, according to footage of the session.
Earlier on Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized as "wrong" the airdrops of ammunition and weapons by U.S. planes to Kurdish fighters battling jihadists in the Syrian town of Kobane.
He said the weapons had fallen into the hands of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) -- a Syrian Kurdish group that Ankara does not support -- and also Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
"It has become clear that this was wrong," Erdogan told reporters in Ankara airport before departing for a trip to Latvia and Estonia.
U.S. cargo planes earlier this week dropped ammunition, weapons and medical supplies to the Kurdish fighters who have been battling the jihadists for control of Kobane for over a month.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said at least one of the loads dropped had been picked up by the jihadists. A video purportedly showing this has surfaced online.
But Erdogan indicated that Turkey was equally troubled by the weapons falling into the hands of the PYD, whose armed branch the People's Protection Units (YPG) has led the fight against the jihadists.
Ankara sees the PYD as the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) whose battle for self-rule in Turkey's southeast has left 40,000 people dead over three decades.
"Some of the airdrops have fallen into the hands of the PYD and ISIS," he said, using a different name for IS. "It's impossible to achieve results with such an operation," he added.
"Any support you would give PYD would benefit the PKK. And as Turkey we need to fight against this," Erdogan added.
Turkey's animosity towards the PYD puts it at odds with the United States, which favors supporting the group to fight the jihadists and says it should not be equated with the PKK.
Ankara has insisted it shares the West's abhorrence of IS but also wants a comprehensive strategy to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad after the three-and-a-half year civil war.
Erdogan's comments came after Turkey agreed to allow Kurdish peshmerga fighters to cross its territory to join the fight against IS in Kobane.
Erdogan said that he had made the proposal to bring the peshmerga to Kobane himself in telephone talks with U.S. President Barack Obama.
But Turkey would only cooperate with the peshmerga and the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army (FSA), and not the PYD, he added.
In contrast to its hostility to the PYD, Turkey in recent years has built up strong relations with the Kurdish authorities in the Kurdistan region of Iraq who control the peshmerga forces.
Source: Agence France Presse
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