COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Turkey is stepping into a larger role in a US-led coalition of some 40 countries fighting Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
“We will provide the necessary support for the operation. The support could be military or logistics,” Turkey’s NTV quoted Erdogan as saying.
The president also welcomed Tuesday’s first air strikes by the United States and five Arab countries against IS targets in Syria, saying they should continue "uninterruptedly."
“I look at it in a positive way. It would be wrong if it is stopped,” Erdogan told Turkish journalists in New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly.
Turkey’s stepped up role comes after the release of 49 Turkish hostages by the IS this week. They were seized from the Turkish consulate in Mosul, when IS stormed into what is Iraq’s second-largest city in June.
US Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed Erdogan’s pledge for greater cooperation in the war, saying Turkey “will be very engaged on the frontlines of this effort."
"Clearly, Turkey had an initial challenge with respect to its hostages and that being resolved, now Turkey is ready to conduct additional efforts along with the rest of us in order to guarantee success," Kerry said at a New York counterterrorism forum.
Turkey, which shares long borders with both Iraq and Syria and is in the frontline of the battle against the militants, had drawn criticism for remaining passive until now, largely because for fear that its hostages being harmed.
So far, the fight against IS was carried out in Iraq, where the US has been conducting air strikes for a month. But events in Syria took a turn for the worst after the rebels renewed attacks in Syria more than 10 days ago, turning their guns on Kobane in Syrian Kurdistan.
Numan Kurtulmus, Turkey's deputy prime minister, said on Monday that more than 130,000 Syrian Kurds have fled to Turkey to flee the IS in recent days.
In addition to long borders with Iraq and Syria, Turkey has a number of strategic air bases that can be used for logistics or to fly missions over both countries. Until now, Ankara had not allowed the use of these bases for attacks on the jihadists.
Responding to allegations that Turkey had allowed logistical and other support to the militants in the past, Erdogan denied any such role.
He said that backing for “any terrorist group is out of the question, as Turkey is a country which has suffered heavily from terrorism in the past," according to the Anadolu Agency.
