North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Stands With Turkey Following Special Meeting

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Fox said: “I don’t think it’s healthy for the coalition against Isis that the United States is carrying out some 90 per cent or more of all the air strikes”.

Suspicions are swirling that Erdogan’s sudden embrace of the US-led campaign against IS in Syria and Iraq simply provides the cover to pound Kurdish rebels, viewed in the West as a bulwark against the jihadists. But the move will also ensure that this territory remains out of the hands of the PYD, preventing Syria’s Kurds from joining up areas under their control into what could otherwise become a strip of Kurdish land running from the Iraqi border nearly to the Mediterranean. The general assumption is that this vicious attack was carried out against the Kurds by ISIS in retaliation for their losses in Syria.

Officials in Ankara are wary of Syrian Kurdish fighters establishing too influential a presence along the border for fear that will reignite an insurgency that has plagued Turkey for three decades. Turkey’s dramatic air campaign against the Islamic State and Kurdish forces has created a bit of a conundrum for President Barack Obama, who is leading the fight against one of Turkey’s targets while relying heavily on the other target.

Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, said Turkey would likely have the greater say on security arrangements in the zone near its border, partly because of its proximity.

But the talks collapsed in acrimony two years later after deadly clashes between militants and Turkey’s army. The meeting came after the killing of 32 young students in Suruç, a Turkish border town near Syria. Perhaps they were quite familiar with these travel plans.

Moreover, a golden opportunity arose, one that Erdogan could not resist.

But Fuad Omer, former head of the PKK-affiliated Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, said Ankara seized a moment to strike out at its longtime foe.

Turkey’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies have expressed unease about the operations aimed at the PKK, since the Kurds have been a crucial ally in the fight against Isis both in Syria and in Iraq.

Meanwhile, large scale anti-terror operations have been ongoing domestically with more than 1,000 people detained on suspicion of belonging to terrorist organizations, including ISIS and the PKK.

Turkey’s air raids against the Kurdish rebels, which came at the same time as Turkey began cracking down on the Islamic State group, are reigniting a 30-year conflict with the insurgents and leave a two-year-old, fragile peace process in pieces. The talks were in progress until these past two weeks, when hostilities escalated and ended the settlement process. Finally, Erdogan has suggested removing immunity for Kurdish Members of Parliament deemed by his authority to be linked to the PKK.

On Thursday, a prosecutor launched an investigation into the HDP’s leader, Selahattin Demirtas, over alleged attempts to disrupt peace and public order by calling for protests in October that resulted in violence, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Many Kurds believe that by reviving conflict with the PKK, Erdogan seeks to undermine support for the HDP ahead of a possible early election.

“Knowingly or not, the U.S.is going to end up having to choose between the Turks and the Kurds”, said Blaise Misztal, national security director at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center.