Free Syrian Army to send 1,300 fighters to Kobane: Turkey

Ankara, Oct 24 (IANS/EFE) The Free Syrian Army (FSA), which fights against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, will send 1,300 of its fighters to the town of Kobane in Syria to help its Kurdish defenders resist a siege by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed Friday.

"We were careful to say that our attitude is highly positive toward the FSA fighting in Syria. We always said our first preference in Syria is the FSA, and the second is the Peshmerga (Iraqi Kurdish forces)," Erdogan said during a press conference in the Estonian capital of Tallin.

"The PYD (Syrian Kurdish political party) previously approved the passage of some Peshmerga forces. However, we later learned that the number has changed and it is only 150 Peshmerga soldiers," he added, according to CNNTurk. "Now they seemed to have accepted some 1,300 troops from the FSA."

Erdogan explained that his country has accepted that FSA fighters en route to Kobane should be allowed to cross the Turkish border.

Past tensions between the FSA and the PYD have led to clashes, but both sides have lately found themselves agreeing on the need to cooperate in the struggle against their common enemy, the IS.

Sources from the PYD told Efe news agency that a small brigade from the FSA has been fighting with the Kurdish militias since the start of the IS siege towards the end of September.

In a related development, Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala declined Friday to confirm whether Peshmerga forces crossed over the Turkish-Syrian border to reach Kobane Thursday evening.

--IANS/EFE

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