The US-led coalition that intervened to help Kurdish fighters defeat the Islamic State in Kobane should have also directed military resources against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said Turkey’s president as he unleashed a salvo of criticism Tuesday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who failed to take a clear role in the coalition against Islamic State, despite Turkey being a NATO member, has pushed for Western and Arab nations to intervene on the side of various rebel fighters against Syria’s government.
Washington and its allies have been wary of getting deeply involved in the Syrian civil war. Some rebel brigades include radical Islamists.
“Why are they not interested in Aleppo? We tell them ‘Aleppo’ but they don’t hear anything when we say ‘Aleppo’,” Erdogan said in Ankara. He was referring to a key northern Syrian city, currently divided between al-Assad loyalists and rebel forces.
Kurds in Turkey have taken to the streets to celebrate the recapture of Kobane from Islamic State jihadists, in some cases clashing with police who tried to break up the festivities.
The Kurds declared Kobane, in northern Syria, a semi-independent canton on January 27, 2014, and are marking the first anniversary on Tuesday.
Syrian-Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) on Monday declared victory in the northern Syrian city, which has taken on immense symbolic importance for both sides in the battle. Fighting is still taking place on the outskirts of the city.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in south-eastern Turkey, according to social media activists.
The revellers set off fireworks and waved flags of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is linked to the YPG.
In Istanbul, Kurds gathered on Istiklal Avenue, the main shopping street in the centre of the city, to sing, dance and bang on drums, shouting: “Kurdistan will be the graveyard of ISIL,” using an acronym for the jihadist militants.
Police broke up the protest, threatening to use water cannons and tear gas.
In Kadikoy, on the Asian side of Turkey’s largest city Istanbul, police used tear gas to disperse pro-Kurdish demonstrations, according to the Dogan news agency.
Fighting over Kobane has been ongoing since September, when Islamic State extremists attacked the region, home to several hundred thousand people.
Most of the Kurdish civilians fled the area to Turkey. Nearly 200,000 have since been living in makeshift refugee camps near the border.
Erdogan in October said Kobane would fall to the Islamic State and was dismissive of a United States-led aerial bombing campaign against the jihadist militants, saying it was unlikely to succeed.
In remarks to journalists aboard his plane on his way back from an African trip this week, Erdogan said Turkey would not accept independent Kurdish cantons in northern Syria.
Three, including Kobane, have been set up during the Syrian civil war, as the Kurds try to establish some self-rule.
“What is this? Northern Iraq and now northern Syria?” Erdogan was quoted as saying by Hurriyet newspaper, referring to the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq.
“There is no way we can accept this. I know that the pressure on Turkey is great, but we have to protect our stance regarding this issue. If such things happen, then there will be many problems in the future,” said Erdogan.
Among the banners carried by Kurds in Diyarbakir were several mocking the president, including one simply reading: “Kobane did not fall, Mr Erdogan.”
The PKK has been fighting a 30-year war for greater rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority, though it has largely observed a ceasefire for the past two years as its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, holds negotiations with the government.
Tensions between the Kurdish minority, estimated to number about 15 million people, and the state have risen since the battle for Kobane erupted last year.
Dozens have also died in confrontations between Islamist Kurds and those supporting the PKK, a leftist group.
In 112 days of fighting over Kobane, the campaign has cost the jihadists almost 1,000 fighters, while the Kurds have lost some 324, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
GNA
