aljazeera.com
Minister says Iraqi Peshmerga will be allowed to cross Turkey's border to aid fight for Syrian town besieged by ISIL.
Turkey has said it will allow Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters to cross its borders and join Syrian Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the embattled Syrian town of Kobane.
"We are assisting Peshmerga forces to cross into Kobane," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara on Monday, adding that talks on the issue were ongoing but without giving further details.
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Erbil in northern Iraq, said there was no official decision by Iraq's Peshmerga forces to send fighters to Kobane, which is close to the Turkish border.
"The president of the Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG], Massoud Barzani, offered to send fighters to Kobane a few weeks ago when he was under pressure with anger mounting on the streets.
"But Peshmerga commanders have told Al Jazeera that this is unrealistic as forces are already stretched thin battling ISIL [in Iraq]," our correspondent said.
The Democratic Union Party (PYD), whose armed wing the YPG has been leading the battle against ISIL in Kobane, said the announcement was just "Turkish propaganda".
"The Peshmerga have their own problems in Iraq," the group's chairman Saleh Muslim told Al Jazeera.
Airdropping weapons
The reported shift in Turkish policy came after a phone call between US President Barack Obama and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish presidential sources told Al Jazeera that during the call Obama described the situation in Kobane as "desperate".
The US on Sunday began airdropping weapons and supplies to Kurdish fighters defending the Syrian city against ISIL, despite Turkey’s continued objections.
The US military said it conducted six air strikes against ISIL positions near Kobane in the past two days, destroying the armed group's fighting positions and vehicles.
The airdrops followed weeks of US and coalition air strikes in and near Kobane.
Turkey objected to the move because it considers the main Syrian Kurdish group, PYD, an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The Turkish security forces have waged a 30-year conflict with the PKK, whose battle for self rule has left 40,000 dead.
However Turkey has recently forged strong relations with the Kurdish authorities in the Kurdistan region of Iraq who control the Peshmerga forces.
Ankara has so far refused to use its own troops or let US forces launch strikes on ISIL from the Incirlik airbase in nearby Adana province.
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