In their fight against the Islamic State (IS) in the Syrian border town of Kobani, the Kurds expected Turkey to allow the opening of a corridor to the town, as well as to side definitively with the People's Protection Units and the Kurdistan Workers Party militants who are fighting against IS there. Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), expressed his dismay Oct. 9 with the Turkish government.
“The common allegation is that Turkey sent more than 2,000 trucks full of weapons. Some of these weapons fell to the hands of the gangs like [Jabhat] al-Nusra and al-Qaeda. Some even debated the possibility whether the Islamic State is fighting with those weapons sent from Turkey. This created a fracture in the public,” Demirtas said. “We, on the other hand, had to engage in dozens of meetings just to send a truck full of humanitarian aid to Kobani. We just want the same legal norms to be adopted for Kobani as those legal norms applied sending aid trucks to the Free Syrian Army. Turkey did not put out a clear position for the last year when al-Nusra gangs started attacking Rojava. People watched this all step by step.”
