Turkish foreign policy hits another cul-de-sac by SUAT KINIKLIOĞLU | Today's Zaman

October 22, 2014, Wednesday, The events of the last few days have been extraordinary, to write the least.

The United States-led coalition's determination to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and defend Kobani -- Washington's shift towards engaging directly with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria -- signifies an important shift in the region. The US has decided that it needs to help save Kobani regardless of what President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan thinks about the town. Patience in Washington has run out with Ankara's short-sighted policy of strangling the Kobani Kurds into submission. President Barack Obama “notified” his Turkish counterpart just hours before US cargo planes dropped off ammunition and medicine to the Kurds defending the city.

Kobanê and Beyond: Unfathomable Risks for Turkey and the Kurds by Marc Pierini | Carnegie Europe

Kobanê and Beyond: Unfathomable Risks for Turkey and the Kurds, by MARC PIERINI, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 | Marc Pierini is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, where his research focuses on developments in the Middle East and Turkey from a European perspective.

The Islamic State’s current offensive against the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobanê is interfering with the politics of many countries, triggering a massive humanitarian emergency, and raising many questions. It also brings immense political and social risks for Turkey and the Kurds.

For the most part, the anti-Islamist resistance in Kobanê is provided by the Syrian Kurds of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The Western and Arab coalition that is fighting the Islamic State offers limited close air support, although the Sunni jihadists’ tactics and the absence of special forces on the ground render that support largely ineffective. Turkey has refused a transit of reinforcements of PYD-affiliated fighters to Kobanê from Qamishli, another Syrian Kurdish district to the east.

Turkey's leaders see Kobani as opportunity, not threat, by Amberin Zaman | Al Monitor

Turkey's leaders see Kobani as opportunity, not threat | The fall of Kobani would deal a severe blow to Kurdish independence hopes and bolster Turkey's political goals. | Author Amberin Zaman Posted October 7, 2014

As Islamic State (IS) fighters keep up their battle to gain control over Kobani, a strategic Syrian Kurdish-controlled enclave on Turkey’s border, the effects of the conflict are being felt in Turkey itself. Thousands of Kurds took to the streets across the country on Oct. 7 to protest Turkey’s inaction against IS' seemingly unstoppable advance. The government slapped curfews on six provinces in the mainly Kurdish southeast region after clashes between protestors and the security forces, and between rival Kurdish groups, left at least 14 people dead. Elsewhere across the country, police clashed with demonstrators, trying to push them back with pressurized water and pepper spray while the Kurds responded with Molotov cocktails in a foretaste of the violence that is likely to engulf the country should Kobani fall.