Turkey Wins NATO Support as It Steps Up ISIS Fight in Syria

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BRUSSELS — Turkey turned to its allies in NATO on Tuesday for political backing, after it agreed to step up efforts against the Islamic State but also renewed its conflict with Kurdish militants.

“All allies expressed their strong support for Turkey, and we stand all together, united in solidarity with Turkey,” Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, told reporters at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels after a meeting of ambassadors of the 28 NATO allies.

But Turkey, which has the second-largest army in NATO after the United States, did not request any additional military assistance.

Its new stance has raised thorny questions for its allies, especially in Europe, about whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is more interested in smashing his Kurdish opponents than he is in defeating the Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/world/middleeast/turkey-wins-nato-support-as-it-steps-up-isis-fight-in-syria.html?_r=0

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1. Turkey's Erdogan: peace process with Kurdish militants impossible

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday it was impossible to continue a peace process with Kurdish militants and urged parliament to strip politicians with links to them of immunity from prosecution.

Hours after he spoke, the Turkish military said its F-16 fighter jets had bombed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in the southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak, which borders Iraq, in response to an attack on a group of gendarmes.

Turkey last week launched air strikes on PKK camps in northern Iraq following a series of attacks on its police officers and soldiers blamed on the Kurdish militant group.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/28/us-mideast-crisis-turkey-kurds-idUSKCN0Q20UV20150728