Turkey - Complex and Worrisome, but Strategic in Winning the War on ISIS

Kurdish forces clashed with ISIS miitants today as the future of Kobani, the largest Kurdish town along the Syria-Turkey border hung in the balance. The Kurds repelled a wide-ranging ISIS assault on Sunday in battles that left dozens dead on both sides. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Kurdish force known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, said more than 45 fighters on both sides were killed Sunday near Kobani, including a Kurdish female fighter who blew herself up, killing several jihadists. Today, observers at the Turkish border saw two black ISIS banners - one over a building and another at a nearby hill at the eastern entrance to Kobani - suggesting that ISIS fighters may have broken through the Kurdish perimeter. Kobani and surrounding areas have been under attack since mid-September, with ISIS militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages. The ISIS offensive has forced 160,000 Syrians to flee and strained Kurdish forces struggling to push back the extremists. US-led coalition airstrikes have not kept ISIS from advancing. And in recent weeks the overstretched Kurds have had difficilties in matching the well-armed ISIS militants, who are using the US weapons they captured in Iraq from the fleeing Iraqi army. But at least 14 Turkish army tanks took up defensive positions on a hilltop near Kobani today and heavy bombing was heard down below. Hostile shells hit a grocery store in a border town in Turkey, but no one was injured. At least four people were injured in a similar incident on Sunday. Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, said: "Yesterday was a very violent day but they were neither able to enter Kobani nor Mashta Nour." ~~~~~ AP reported that Khalil added that PYD chief Saleh Muslim Mohammed visited Turkey over the weekend, where he met Turkish officials, without providing further details. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc confirmed that Mohammed visited the Turkish capital Ankara, also without elaborating. Arinc said that the Kurdish PYD sided with al-Assad, something the Kurds deny, but now that they are threatened by ISIS, 200,000 people have come to Turkey. (And they are saying) 'Oh my God, come and save me." Turkey is wary of the PYD, believing it is affiliated with the Kurdish PKK movement, which waged a long and bloody domestic insurgency in southeast Turkey. ~~~~~ Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour today that Turkey would be willing to do its part if others do their part. In an interview that aired Monday, Davutoglu said : “We are ready to do everything if there is an agreement that our border will be protected. We don’t want the regime anymore on our border pushing people against - towards Turkey. We don’t want other terrorist organizations to be active there.” Turkey is on Syria's northern border and has been central to the civil war there since it began over three years ago. Then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan broke with his longtime ally, Syrian President Bashar al- Assad, to support Syria's opposition and since then, the government has been trying to convince the international community to do more to stop al-Assad. Davutoglu told Amanpour that US President Barack Obama, long wary of becoming involved, has become convinced that he must intervene in the Syrian war, but only to stop ISIS, not to go after the leader he nonetheless says long ago lost the legitimacy to govern. Davutoglu said : "Our approach should be comprehensive. "We shouldn't be separating pre-ISIS and post-ISIS Syria. From the first early days of the crisis until now, no other country did more than what Turkey did against the attacks, brutal attacks of the regime, as well as against ISIS." He said that American airstrikes in Syria are necessary but not enough for a victory : "If ISIS goes, another radical organization may come in. So our approach should be comprehensive, inclusive, strategic and combined...not just to punish -- to satisfy our public opinion -- to punish one terrorist organization, but to eliminate all terrorist threats in the future, and also to eliminate all brutal crimes against humanity committed by the regime." ~~~~~ Dear readers, we have known for sometime that Turkey has a big role to play in what is happening in the Middle East because of ISIS, and an even bigger role to play in the outcome of the Syrian civil war. For centuries, Turkey has been the buffer between Europe and Asia. It has been courted by the British Empire, Russia, Nazi Germany, and the United States. It has one of the world's larger standing armies, well-equipped and trained. It has, at least until Erdogan, been a reference for those who believe Islam can exist in a modern secular state. Turkey's roles have always been multiple and complex, but never more so than now, when a conservative leader -- thought by many to be pulling Turkey toward fundamentalist Islam -- is also the key to holding ISIS at bay in Syria, thereby protecting Greece and the rest of Mediterranean Europe from its militants. Europe and America may wonder what Turkey's real intentions are, but that should not obscure the reality of the current Middle East situation. Europe needs Turkey as a buffer against ISIS. And for as long as President Obama persists in his fantasy world view in which America bombs and others do the hard work of securing territory and saving people for freedom, America needs Turkey. And - just to remind ourselves of the bottom line - Turkey is a member of NATO, with all the obligations and rights that membership entails. And today, the new NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, verified one of those rights -- Stoltenberg said that the NATO military alliance will stand by Turkey if that proves necessary to protect the country from attacks on it by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).