Turkey allowing ISIL to attack Kobani – analyst
Turkey allows the Takfiri ISIL group to attack Kobani because it is a stronghold of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an analyst tells Press TV.
Scott Rickard, a former American intelligence linguist, told Press TV in an interview Tuesday, “Turkey is working alongside NATO to allow ISIS (ISIL) to attack Kobani. Kobani is strategically a PKK stronghold.”
The PKK is a Kurdish organization that was until 2013 involved in an armed militancy against Turkey for Kurdish self-determination.
Rickard added that Turkey is “taking the opportunity to direct the ISIS forces and allow them to take out a traditional enemy,” in reference to the PKK.
The comment comes as Turkish Kurds have launched street protests voicing their concern over what they call Ankara’s cooperation with Takfiri militants to carry out a massacre in the strategic Syrian border town of Kobani.
Rickard stated, “The protests have been fairly non-violent; but, unfortunately, the retaliation by the Turkish government has been extremely violent.”
Turkish media have reported that Turkish warplanes bombed targets belonging to the PKK in the southeast of Turkey. The PKK has condemned the military airstrikes against its members in the southeast as a violation of a ceasefire agreement signed in March 2013.
The Kurds are also angry at the government for preventing them from crossing into neighboring Syria to reinforce the fight against the ISIL terrorists.
Turkey also continues to block the supply of military equipment for the Kurdish fighters defending the border city.
“We are looking at a scenario where they are deliberately allowing these (ISIL) individuals to go after Kobani,” Rickard emphasized.
Kobani, also known as Ain al-Arab, and its surroundings have been under attack since mid-September, with the ISIL militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages.
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