The security situation on the Turkish-Syrian border and especially around the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane has paved the way for a something that was unthinkable just weeks ago. Turkey, a long-time opponent of supporting Kurdish factions in Syria, may be softening its approach as Kurdish forces fight radical Islamists who are now just 10 km from Turkish soil.
Over the past 16 days, Kurdish fighters and ISIS militants have been engaged in an all-out fight over the strategically important city, which is in the Kurdish-controlled region of northern Syria. While the fight for territory and the access to supply lines has been ongoing between the two groups for well over a year, ISIS recently launched an aggressive incursion deep into Kurdish territory.
ISIS has taken dozens of villages, gained ground on an almost daily basis, and forced 160,000 refugees into neighboring Turkey. The latest reports suggest that the Islamic State's fighting positions are visible from the outskirts of Kobane – paramedics within the town said Thursday evening that ISIS and YPG (Syrian Kurdistan's People’s Defense Units) had been preparing to engage in urban combat in the Eastern and Southern peripheries of Kobane for the past 24 hours.
"They are preparing for street fights in the outskirts of Kobane," a frontline medic told us via phone early Friday.
Several eye-witnesses said that the US-led coalition had targeted ISIL positions East of Kobane while drones have been spotted roaming the skies over the city in the past few days.
On the Turkish side of the border fence, hundreds of young and unarmed Syrian Kurdish refugees were trespassing the closed border to join the fight in Kobane. Images of Kurds tearing down the fence in order to return to the frontlines have been circulating in Turkish and international media.
Moreover, Kurdish youth from all over Turkey were seen arriving in the city of Sanliurfa and the border towns of Akcakkale and Suruc by bus, local sources within Turkey’s emergency rescue and aid authority (UMKE) reported.
"We even saw guys who said they were from Istanbul who came with backpacks to cross!" one of the UMKE medics told us. Kurds have traversing mine fields on the Turkish-Syrian border in order to join the fight for Kobane, several local eye-witnesses based at the Turkish Mürsitpinar border post confirmed.
Ankara’s changing approach
Turkey’s vulnerability to ISIS attacks has been the main reason for Ankara’s reluctance to join the US-led coalition against ISIS. Instead, they have focused on humanitarian aid and relief work. But this might change in the very near future.
In the past week, Turkish media reported several mortar shells landing inside Turkey. Early Saturday, ISIS tanks with Iraqi military insignia could be seen from Turkish soil, while maneuvering in the terrain outside Kobane, medics with UMKE located near Mürsitpinat told us via phone.
On top of this, in recent weeks both the US embassy in Ankara and the German Foreign Ministry issued security warnings, urging their citizens to be vigilant against possible terrorist attacks in retaliation for coalition airstrikes against ISIS.
The fact that countries like the US and Germany are issuing public warnings regarding a NATO ally's safety highlights the urgency of the situation and could force Turkey to take a more robust stance in the coalition framework.
The abruptly deteriorating security situation is the primary concern on Ankara’s agenda right now.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly’s 69th session in New York in late September, Turkish President Reccip Tayyip Erdogan stressed that the current aerial campaign does not suffice in destroying the militant jihadists.
More importantly, he went on to underline that "We need groups like the Syrian wing of the terror organization [the PKK, a Turkey-based Kurdish insurgent group] when envisioning a solution to the [ISIS] threat," while speaking to Turkish journalists from t24.com.tr in New York.
This is a significant statement, and quietly signals a softening approach to the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the YPG – which has ties to Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK), a group that has been waging a multi-decade insurgency in Turkey.
Erdogan's quote was lost amidst media reports of 160,000 Syrian refugees crossing the border in to Turkey. However, it could possibly bring a scenario into play where the US coordinates airstrikes with Syrian Kurdish ground forces – as has been the case in neighboring Iraq.
In that country, coalition jets are targeting ISIS militants with Kurdish Peshmerga forces acting as the primary combat element on the ground. Erdogan is joined by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan, a well-known hawk inthe country's politics who said "the Syrian Kurds are our natural allies" in his opening remarks at a conference in the city of Mardin on Friday.
YPG and moderate rebels from the Syrian opposition have also recently shown unprecedented willingness to cooperate against ISIS.
The main Syrian Kurdish militia, assorted elements of the Free Syria Army, and a previously quiet group called Jabhat al-Akrad banded together in September, raising eyebrows across the region. Announcing the establishment of a specialized task force — built around the nucleus of a "Euphrates Volcano" operations center — disparate groups of non-Islamist fighters declared their intention to liberate Raqqa and Aleppo.
With the US Congress’s approval of the Obama administration’s proposal to start vetting and training Syria's moderate opposition, joint forces like Euphrates Volcano could be feasible partners in a move towards bolstering the coalition's ground partners – without putting US personnel in danger.
On October 2nd, Turkey’s parliament convened to vote on extending the scope of two existing mandates and allowing Ankara to take military action in Syria and Iraq.
Shortly after the vote, which also gave permission for coalition forces to use military facilities in Turkey as forward operating bases, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu echoed the sentiments of Erdogan and Akdogan in an interview with ATV.
“We will do do whatever we can so that Kobane does not fall [to IS jihadists]," he said, without giving specific details on the measures Turkey might take.
These developments come one week after the PKK’s military wing launched an attack on a gendarmerie checkpoint in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, jeopardizing a two-year ceasefire between PKK and the republic of Turkey.
But at the same time, the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan, said in a statement released on Thursday, “I urge everyone in Turkey who does not want the process and the democracy voyage to collapse to take responsibility in Kobane." The latest 72 hours have shown that the ongoing Kurdish peace process inside Turkey is directly tied to the situation in Kobane. Ankara is in a tight spot where it needs to show willingness to cooperate to keep the peace project viable.
With the current violence on the border, the political climate is ripe for Turkey to take a more active approach to the fight against ISIS.
It is still to early too tell how this engagement will materialize. But feasible options include increasing support of its proxies like the FSA and its allies or further softening its stance on possible cooperation with Syria's Kurds.
One way or another, the next few days will be decisive. Keep an eye on Ankara.
Hetav Rojan is an Istanbul-based journalist focusing on international affairs.
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