Kurdish leaders call for more Turkish help in the fight against ISIS

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - As Kurdish Peshmerga intensified fighting against Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Mosul, Kurdish leaders called for a larger military commitment from the Turkish government at a conference in Erbil. 

“Turkey should be more cooperative and should play a bigger role in the fight against ISIS to restore stability in this area,” Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani told an audience at Monday’s event, organized by the Middle East Research Institute (MERI) and the Al-Sharq Forum.

“Peshmerga is fighting ISIS bravely. Those forces should be better armed and better supported,” he added, making clear the KRG did not expect Turkey to enter into direct combat with the radical Islamist group.  

Since ISIS occupied Mosul last June, Turkey has been reluctant to support its coalition partners in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, despite being a NATO country sharing direct access to both countries’ borders.

Even after 49 hostages from the Turkish consulate in Mosul were freed in September, the Turkish government has limited its role largely to intelligence sharing and logistics.

When Turkey opened its Incirlik air base to allies in October, it ruled out the use of manned aircraft and insisted that only drones could use the base until its proposal of a no-fly zone in northern Syria is taken seriously by the international community. 

Later that month, however, it allowed a limited number Kurdish Peshmerga to cross southern Turkey to reach Syrian-Kurdish fighters besieged by ISIS in the northern Syrian city of Kobane.  Peshmerga brought much-needed artillery to fight ISIS and helped turn the tide against the militants, thwarting ISIS efforts to consolidate territory along the Turkish border.

Kurdish forces said Monday they had liberated Kobane and driven ISIS out of all of the city’s neighborhoods.

“Giving permission for KRG to send troops through Kobane was a big change for Turkey in terms of policy,” said Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff to the president of the Kurdistan Region. 

But even so, he said that “there should have been more steps taken against ISIS,” and warned that “ISIS will not be a tool in the hand in a country or party,” echoing popular suspicion in the region that Turkey allowed extremist fighters into Syria in order to wage war against the Assad regime and Kurdish groups.  

“Any party that uses ISIS as a tool will burn their own hand: they are a threat to the whole region, even Turkey,” he added.

Turkey and the Kurdistan Region have developed strong political links in the last few years, overcoming a fraught history defined by Turkey’s conflict with its own restive Kurdish population.

A decade of Turkish business investment in Kurdistan lay the foundation for this relationship, and the semiautonomous region counts on oil exports through Turkey to ensure its economic independence from Baghdad.  

“The cooperation over the last five years have improved tremendously,” said Saad Saadulla, a KRG energy advisor.  “The leadership in KRG and Turkey have created the path for the energy agreement over the last 2-3 years,” and in the next years “the goal is for the KRG to supply 15-20% of oil and gas consumption, and hopefully more.”

Yet, such economic interdependency is far from guaranteed, and recently many Kurds feel Turkey should do more to protect their short-term security interests. 

When ISIS militants came last August within 30 kilometers of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, Hussein was openly critical of Turkey’s failure to act, leaving it to American airplanes and the Iranian government to deliver weapons to under-equipped Kurdish troops. 

“I was one of those who expected Turkish planes to be the first to come to Erbil’s defense,” said Hiwa Osman, a Kurdish journalist. 

“We all thought that then-prime minister (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan was going to take the lead in the war against ISIS. But Qasem Soleimani assumed the role we all expected Erdogan to play,” he said referring to the commander of Iran’s elite Qods force, who has been active in mobilizing a variety of anti-ISIS combatants inside Iraq and Syria. 

The Kurdish plea for more help comes at a sensitive time in the fight against ISIS.  Many Iraqi Kurds are furious they were not invited to -- or acknowledged at -- a meeting of anti-ISIS coalition members in London last Thursday, despite the fact that approximately 1,000 Peshmerga have died and thousands more have been injured since June.  

Meanwhile, the Kurdish forces have begun shelling the city of Mosul in anticipation of what promises to be a long and costly military campaign against a well-entrenched contingent of ISIS fighters.