A senior Syrian Kurdish official on Friday denied a report from Turkey's president that Syrian Kurds had agreed to let 1,300 Free Syrian Army fighters enter the border town of Kobane to help defend it against besieging Islamic State insurgents.
President Tayyip Erdogan has long championed the relatively secular Free Syrian Army in the complicated, faction-ridden insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has repeatedly advocated FSA intervention in Kobane.
Turkey's unwillingness to send its powerful army across the border to help secure Kobane has angered Kurds, but appears rooted in a concern not to strengthen Kurds seeking autonomy in adjoining regions of Turkey, Iraq and Syria.
Erdogan said on Friday said 1,300 FSA fighters would enter Kobane after the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) agreed on their passage, but his comments were swiftly denied by Saleh Moslem, co-chair of the PYD.