Kurdish fighters in northern Syria accused the Turkish army of shelling their positions yesterday, highlighting the precarious path Ankara is treading as it simultaneously battles Islamic State in Syria and Kurdish insurgents in Iraq.
Long a reluctant member of the US-led coalition against Islamic State, Turkey last week made a dramatic turnaround by granting the alliance access to its air bases and bombarding targets in Syria linked to the jihadist movement.
The NATO member also launched a second night of air strikes on Kurdish insurgent camps in Iraq on Sunday, part of what a senior government official described as a “full-fledged battle against all terrorist organisations.”
The renewed military campaign against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state partly from camps in northern Iraq, has raised suspicions that Turkey’s real agenda is checking Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than fighting Islamic State.
In a statement only likely to deepen Kurdish suspicions, the YPG said that the Turkish army had shelled its positions in a village on the outskirts of the Islamic State-held border town of Jarablus and urged Ankara to halt attacks on its forces.
Several tank rounds from across the border hit its positions and the Turkish army was targeting them instead of the “terrorists,” the YPG statement said.
A senior Turkish official confirmed that the Turkish army had shot back after it came under fire from across the border late on Sunday, but said it was unclear which group was involved and stressed that the YPG was not a target.
“The ongoing military operation seeks to neutralise imminent threats to Turkey’s national security and continues to target Islamic State in Syria and the PKK in Iraq,” the official said, adding that Ankara was investigating.
The YPG made further gains against Islamic State in northern Syria yesterday, capturing a town near the Euphrates River after a month-long offensive aimed at cutting their supply lines, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, and YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said.
The PYD has emerged as the only notable partner so far on the ground for the US-led alliance as it fights Islamic State in northern Syria. But the Kurdish group has links to the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. The two share not only ideology but fighters, with the PKK drawing Syrian Kurdish fighters to its camps in northern Iraq and Turkish Kurds among the PYD ranks.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted yesterday as saying the PYD could “have a place in the new Syria” if it did not disturb Turkey, cut all relations with the administration of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and cooperated with opposition forces.
Washington has reiterated that it labels the PKK as a terrorist organisation and stressed that it respects Turkey’s right to take action against the militant group.
