NATO-INDISPENSABLE TURKEY

"Those who had never voted for us, those who had supported the AKP [Justice and Development Party were all at Suric. They are all in the streets now. Ankara's policy of let's leave it to IS [Islamic State] to cleanse the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] and the PYD [Democratic Union Party] and to teach them a lesson has destroyed everything. Beheadings by IS, the rape of women and Turkey's passivity in the face of all this barbarity has become a breaking point for the Kurds. ... Before it was the guerrillas who said that this state cannot be trusted, but now the people in the street are saying it, too. Kurds see how the state is turning a blind eye to IS."
"The TV was on. We were watching the Sterk and Rnahi Kurdish channels. The news ticker read: 'A statement by the KCK [Kurdistan Communities Union]: Kobani is AKP's new war concept'. A second statement followed: 'Don't leave the streets. Every place is Kobani, every place is resistance'. Striking pictures were aired of streets full of people; places on fire."
Hasan Cemal, Turkish journalist, editor-in-chief of newspaper Cumhuriyet

Turkish soldiers in armored vehicles patrol the streets of Diyarbakir, Oct. 8, 2014.  (photo by REUTERS/Sertac Kayar)

"I don’t remember anything like this. This is the first time. This is a true uprising, a serhildan. Last night, the governor called me to say, Tell them to go home. It was like a joke. Who is going to listen to us? In popular actions like this a point comes when you can no longer keep a rein."
"In the people's eyes, Erdogan is now a dictator. What kind of arrogance is that?"
"Listen, what we have been living through for the past two days is serhildan of Kobani, an uprising. It is beyond an organization. It is an uprising of the people. This state’s mentality has not changed in substance. Look, years later tanks are back on the streets. With this sort of state mentality Kurdish equality is a false dream. You can’t solve the issue with this mentality."
"Even I am confounded by this Kobani issue. I was thinking that in the end Turkey would help the Kurds. I was wrong. It didn’t."
Amet Turk, Kurdish Mayor of Suric, (border) province of Mardin

"It's a moral responsibility for all of us to move in order to help the besieged [city of] Kobani."  
"We hope that there would be an understanding by Turkey to the calls from the international community and to the needs of these people who have proven to be bravely fighting the terrorists throughout this period, from the day they have been besieged."
"We are not asking for the impossible. For a corridor to be opened for those who are ready to go and join [the fighters in Kobani], because they need weapons, they need ammunition, they need medical assistance, and they need foodstuffs."
Falah Mustafa, foreign minister, Kurdish regional government (KRG), October 13, 2014

Turkish Kurds are disbelievingly outraged that the country that purports to represent their interests equally with all other Turkish citizens complacently sits by as the Syrian Kurdish militias desperately try to keep the Islamic State jihadists from capturing the sole remaining border city separating Syria and Turkey. Should Kobani fall to the Islamic State, they will have achieved the domination of a wide swath of territory on the Turkish border, representing a potential threat to Turkey itself; unless, that is, a understanding exists between the government of Turkey and the emerging caliphate.

Kurdish demonstrations have not moved Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's agenda is clear; despite urging from other NATO members that Turkey move to prevent Islamic State from achieving its goal, in the process slaughtering all who stand in its way, and presenting a stark blow to Syrian Kurdish prospects of administrative and governmental autonomy, he has no intention of allowing humanitarian aid through Turkey to Syria. There was never an issue of allowing Turkey to be used as a transit point into Syria by international jihadists eager to join the Islamic State, however.

For their troubles, Turkish Kurds have had tear gas lobbed at them, and live ammunition. So far, 31 Turkish Kurds have lost their lives in confrontation with the Turkish military, tasked to maintain order and security and prevent the country's Kurds from 'unlawful' assembly and destabilizing the country. Something that, in effect, President Erdogan has accomplished all on his own, the peace agreement between Ankara and the KPP entirely in shreds as he holds out permitting U.S.-led airstrikes to be launched from Turkey.

ISTANBUL — Removing the terrorist ISIS group from Syria is not enough, removing President Bashar al-Assad regime should be the main target, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday.

Ankara, as a member of the international coalition against IS, says it will not get involved in unilateral ground action but will make its bases available to the coalition for training Syrian rebel forces and for conducting air strikes. As for the training of opposition fighters that Turkey had agreed to, it states they will accept only 4,000 for that purpose, and only those screened by Turkish intelligence to ensure that fighters from the Syrian YPG would be excluded, the very fighters who have proven most effective in countering the onslaught of Islamic State forces.

And as though to prove convincingly enough who Turkey would far prefer to launch a battle against, Turkish F-16 and F-4 jets were dispatched, flying out from bases in Malatya and Diyarbakir to strike PKK outposts in the Daglica mountain district in Hakkari province late on Monday night. Previously unreported (as in not having occurred in reality, but presenting usefully as a reason regardless) RPG attacks by the group on a military guard post made this bombing mandatory in Turkey's self-defence.