Turkish jets again hit PKK targets inside and outside Turkey on Sunday night and on Tuesday.
Advertisement
Turkey launched a wave of airstrikes in Iraq last week targeting militants with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in the country’s northwest.
The agreement comes as Turkey also takes military action against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, a move some analysts see as tacitly approved by Washington in exchange for the Incirlik deal. It was only the fifth such meeting in NATO’s 66-year history.
The cabinet has agreed to “implement elements agreed between Turkey and the United States”, said the official.
A 110-kilometer (68-mile) stretch along the Turkish border in Syria is under Islamic State control.
“We have to sit down with the Turks and figure it out”, noted one official familiar with the situation, who said the US had a much easier time deciding on rebel groups “we absolutely will not work with”, but seem to be struggling to figure out who that leaves.
Turkey’s involvement could have far-reaching consequences.
Washington and Ankara this week announced their intention to provide air cover for Syrian rebels and jointly sweep Islamic State fighters from a strip of land along the border, with U.S. warplanes using bases in Turkey for strikes. But Turkey’s more primary concern is to prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state along its southern border and to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government. Turkey called a meeting of its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies Tuesday to discuss threats to its security and its airstrikes. The zone likely would stretch between the towns of Azaz to the west and Jarablous to the east, and it probably would reach as far south as al-Bab.
Whatever the goal, the plan will put U.S. and allied warplanes closer than ever to areas that Syrian aircraft regularly bomb, raising the question of what they will do if Syrian warplanes attack their partners on the ground.
But the plan faces the same challenges that have long plagued U.S. policy in Syria. However, in the absence of a no-fly zone to neutralize Assad’s warplanes, it is not clear how the possible buffer zone could be considered a safe haven.
Advertisement
The train and equip program aims to bolster Syrian insurgents deemed politically moderate enough by the United States to fight the Islamic State group that has seized wide areas of Syria.
