ANKARA, Turkey, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- In a policy change, Turkey will allow Kurdish military forces to travel through Turkish land to defend Kobane, Syria.
The government announced it would permit armed Kurdish fighters, or peshmerga, to travel from northern Iraq through Turkey to Kobane, the border city whose five-week-long defense against Islamic State forces has become symbolic of the fight against the Islamist militant group. Earlier this month Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan referred to both the Kurdish military and IS as "terrorists," reinforcing his country's stormy relationship with its ethnic Kurdish population. The move came after days of violent protest in Turkish cities, opposing the government's lack of involvement in helping besieged Kurds in Syria and Iraq. While Kurds and the IS are battling for control of Kobane, a small city on the Syria-Turkey border, over 100,000 Syrian Kurdish civilians have sought refuge in Turkey.