[The issue that demands our attention is the fact that those (YPG) who are fighting the ISIS on the ground in Kobane are linked to the PKK, a radical Left group, the most major insurgent group in Turkey - once quite powerful and had once been committed to the establishment of an independent Kurdistan straddling Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. (Ref.: < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party#cite_note-joost-36> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party >). That appears to be a huge issue with the Turkish regime, and, to a significantly lesser extent, with the US as well.]
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21623795-reluctance-strike-may-redound-turkeys-president-while-kobane-burns Turkey and Syria While Kobane burns The reluctance to strike IS may redound on Turkey's president Oct 11th 2014 | ANKARA THE contrast could not be starker. On one side of a barbed-wire fence, beneath plumes of smoke from air strikes and amid the rattle of gunfire, the bearded fighters of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) closed their grip on Kobane, a Kurdish town on Syria's northern border. On the other Turkey's soldiers, with tanks and armoured personnel carriers, nonchalantly watch the show, stirring only to fire tear gas and beat back Kurdish protesters wanting to help their Syrian brethren. The reluctance of Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to aid Kobane--even in the name of supporting his American allies as they give air support to the beleaguered defenders--is as obstinate as it is puzzling. It is also counter-productive, given that it drives a wedge between Turkey and America and heightens tension with Turkey's own Kurdish minority. It may yet rekindle Turkish Kurds' long but now dormant insurgency. Mr Erdogan says any help to the Syrian Kurds depends on them abandoning their de facto alliance with the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, and joining the mainstream rebel alliance seeking to overthrow him. There were hopes in early October that this position would be softened after secret talks took place in Turkey between Syrian Kurds and assorted Turkish diplomats and spooks. The officials are said to have tentatively agreed to allow weapons from other Kurdish-run enclaves to transit Turkey and be delivered to the besieged forces of the Syrian Kurdish People's Protections Units (YPG). But Mr Erdogan, who seems to defer to the country's more hawkish generals on Kurdish matters these days, is said to have quashed the idea. He also told America, which has been conducting air strikes in defence of Kobane, that they would not get Turkish help unless they agreed to target Mr Assad as well as IS., and set up a no-fly zone. His inaction is stirring Kurdish accusations that Mr Erdogan is either co-operating with IS's jihadists, or at least fears them less than he does the YPG, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has waged a decades-long insurgency for self-rule in Turkey. Yet Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, has warned that peace talks with the Turkish government would end if the jihadists were allowed to prevail. On October 7th young Kurds went on a rampage, burning vehicles, looting shops, and hurling Molotov cocktails and rocks at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. More than 20 died. Tanks and armoured vehicles were deployed to impose curfews in the predominantly Kurdish cities of Diyarbakir, Batman, Bingol, and Van, as well as other areas. Mr Erdogan's calculation that the Kurds cannot afford to open a second front against Turkey while they are grappling with the jihadists is being tested. Mr Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development party may be hurt by the turmoil, especially if it scares off foreign investors before parliamentary elections due to be held next summer. A sinister dimension is the fact that most of those killed in street violence died in clashes between sympathisers of rival Kurdish groups--the PKK on one side and Huda-Par, a pro-Islamic group, on the other. Huda-Par has links to an armed Kurdish faction known as Hizbullah (unconnected to the militia in Lebanon); in the 1990s it fought a nasty war against the PKK that left thousands of Kurds dead. Turkey's "deep state," dominated by rogue generals, is widely believed to have egged on the Islamists against their nationalist brethren. Mr Erdogan's much-vaunted peace process with the Kurds is fast collapsing. >From the print edition: Middle East and Africa <http://www.economist.com/printedition/2014-10-11> -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
