Turkey mulling ‘buffer zone’ against Islamic State

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkey’s military is working on plans to 

establish a “buffer zone” on his country’s borders with Iraq and Syria against Islamic State 

terrorists, Turkish media reports said Tuesday.

Turkish troops stationed at the border gate with Syria in Akcakale, Turkey (photo credit: AP)

Asked about the possibility of a buffer zone on Turkey’s southern borders, Hurriyet and other 

media quoted Erdogan as saying: “The armed forces are working (on plans). They will bring 

them to us. We will decide if it is necessary.”

Erdogan did not say which side of the borders any buffer zone would be established or what it would entail.

NATO member Turkey has not committed to an alliance coalition announced this month to take on the Islamic State group — which is holding 49 Turks, including diplomats, hostage. It has told allies that it will stay quietly behind the scenes.

Kurdish fighters captured more than a dozen villages from the Islamic State group in heavy fighting across northeastern Syria, an activist group and a Kurdish official said Monday.

Kurdish fighters have been repelling the advances of the Islamic State militants for more than a year in northern Syria. The battle-hardened Kurdish force, known by its acronym YPK, has been the most successful at fighting the Islamic State group, which has routed Iraqi and Syrian armed forces.

The Syrian military has also recently gone on the offensive against the extremist group, which has seized at least three army bases and killed hundreds of soldiers.

US President Barack Obama announced last week that the United States will ramp up airstrikes and try to build an international coalition to degrade and eventually destroy the Islamic State group. US Secretary of State John Kerry visited several Muslim states including Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in recent days, in order to build a coalition aimed at beating back the extremist group.

State Department officials said Sunday that a number of Arab countries have expressed willingness to launch airstrikes against jihadists of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, The New York Times reported.

“There have been offers both to Centcom [the US Department of Defense Central Command] and to the Iraqis of Arab countries taking more aggressive kinetic action,” an official said.

“I don’t want to leave you with the impression that these Arab members haven’t offered to do airstrikes because several of them have,” the official said. “The Iraqis would have to be a major participant in that decision. It has to be well structured and organized.”

BY AP AND TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF

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