29-03-2024 02:18 PM Jerusalem Timing

PKK Calls on Turkey’s Kurds to Fight ISIL in Syria

PKK Calls on Turkey’s Kurds to Fight ISIL in Syria

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish PKK group called on Thursday for the youth of the country’s mostly Kurdish southeast to join the fight against militants of the so-called ’Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) in northern Syria.

Turkey: PKKTurkey's pro-Kurdish PKK group called on Thursday for the youth of the country's mostly Kurdish southeast to join the fight against militants of the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) in northern Syria.

The call came as ISIL gunmen encircled the city of Ayn al-Arab near the Turkish border after seizing 21 villages in a major assault that prompted a commander to appeal for military aid from other Kurds in the region.

"The youth of northern Kurdistan (southeast Turkey) should go to Kobane (Ayn al-Arab) and take part in the historic, honorable resistance," the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said in a statement on its website.

In remarks to reporters following talks with Danish parliamentary speaker Mogens Lykketoft on Wednesday, Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek warned the PKK is attempting to portray itself positively to the West by exploiting its fight against ISIL.

"PKK blocks the roads, abducts people and continues with bomb attacks whenever it finds the opportunity," Cicek said.

He went on: "But it tries to seem attractive to the West through its fight with ISIL. We hope the West will not be deceived by such an illusion. This organization continues to be a terrorist one."

Turkey, which launched a peace process with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 2012 to end a 30-year-old conflict which has killed more than 40,000 people in Turkey, agreed to allow the US to use the Incirlik air base in south-eastern Turkey for humanitarian purposes only, refusing a request by the U.S. for it to become an active base in air strikes on ISIL targets in neighboring Iraq.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his ministers to discuss a report drawn up by Turkey's Chief of Army Staff Necdet Ozel which stated that attacks by the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria could lead to a new wave of up to four million refugees fleeing towards Turkey's borders, which would make buffer zones set up by NATO forces necessary.

The report did not specifically state the surface area of the proposed buffer zones, but should the plan be accepted at the 69th session of the U.N. General Assembly on September 21, which President Erdogan plans to attend, it is expected that Erdogan will seek to include Turkey's Suleiman Shah base in Syria's Aleppo to be included within it.