Ankara appears to be seriously disturbed by joint operations of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Burkan al-Firat forces made up of Arab opposition elements from the Raqqa region, backed by US air support, to oust Islamic State (IS) forces from Tell Abyad in Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed Kurds are being settled in areas abandoned by Arabs and Turkmens during the aerial bombing by the Western coalition. In September and October 2014, when IS was besieging Kobani, Erdogan's declaration — sounding like he was delivering good news — that ‘‘Kobani is about to fall” infuriated Kurds. This may help explain his total loss of Kurdish regions in the June 7 elections. Now the question being asked is why Erdogan seems to be so concerned about the possible IS loss of Tell Abyad?

The Tell Abyad border crossing, directly opposite Turkey’s town of Akcakale, was entrusted on Sept. 19, 2012, to a coalition of Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Burkan al-Firat and Liwa al-Tawhid Brigades. That decision had two objectives:

• To distance Syrian regime forces from the border and to create a buffer zone for the opposition forces to operate freely.
• To hinder the Kurds' autonomy movement in the Syrian areas Kurds control and to sever the link between the Kurdish cantons of Kobani and Jazeera in what the Kurds call Rojava (Western Kurdistan).

At that time, there were some clashes between the Islamist forces that had taken over Tell Abyad and the Kurdish Front, which then was part of the Free Syrian Army.