Visits to Ankara by both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel last week failed to persuade Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to step up as a "core" member of a US-led "broad coalition of partners” against the Islamic State (IS), which US President Barack Obama announced on Sept. 10.

While US officials said that Turkey has, finally, begun to crack down on foreign fighters entering Syria, the circumspect response by Erdogan to separate appeals by both Kerry and Hagel can only be characterized as a setback for the rollout of US President Barack Obama’s regional strategy against IS.

The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 13 characterized Turkey as a “non-ally" and cited former US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone as saying last week that Turkey "frankly worked” with Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda-linked group.

The spin from Ankara is that Turkish reluctance to be out front is because of an understandable concern about its diplomats held hostage by IS in Mosul, a sign of the blowback from Turkey’s ambiguous approach to foreign fighters in Syria that this column has warned about since January.