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UPDATE 1315 GMT: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday that the Syrian Kurdish PYD has agreed to the passage of 1,300 Free Syrian Army fighters to Kobane.
However, the leader of the PYD, Salih Muslim, said that talks are continuing between the Kurdish militia YPG and Abdul Jabbar al-Aqidi, a top commander of the FSA.
“We already established connection with FSA but no such agreement has been reached yet as Mr. Erdoğan has mentioned,” Muslim asserted.
Footage from inside Kobane, posted today on YouTube:
About 200 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga will soon pass through Turkey to help defend the Syrian Kurdish center of Kobane against the Islamic State, according to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Ankara — working with Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and seeking to boost the Iraqi Kurdish presence versus the Syrian Kurdish political and military leadership in Kobane — agreed to the transit of the peshmerga earlier this week. The Iraqi Kurdish Parliament formally agreed the arrangement on Wednesday.
Erdoğan told reporters on Thursday, “They [the Iraqi Kurdish Parliament] have finally agreed on a number of 200.”
The arrangements were made during a week of talks, culminating on Sunday, among Kurdish factions in Dohuk in northern Iraq, and consultations between the Iraqi Kurds, Turkey, and the US.
Salih Muslim, the leader of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), has been cool about the agreement. He said that he would prefer Syrian Kurds, cut off from Kobane by Islamic State forces, to transit through Iraq and then Turkey to cross the Syrian border near the besieged town.
An aide to the Peshmerga Minister in Iraqi Kurdistan said talks are ongoing. He was more cautious than Erdoğan, saying discussions of timing and number of fighters were ongoing.
Video: Women’s Protest Near Aleppo Calls for Men to Return & Fight
Women in Anadan, near Aleppo, call on young Syrian men to return and “defend their land”:
Video: Regime Forces Battle With Islamic State in Deir Ez Zor City
Footage from pro-regime TV of the Syrian military’s clashes with the Islamic State in the divided city of Deir Ez Zor in eastern Syria (Warning — Graphic Images):
The Islamic State drove insurgents out of the city this spring, but the Syrian military continued to hold sections.
Video: US Airstrike on Hill Taken By Islamic State, West of Kobane
Footage of one of the US airstrikes on Thursday, countering the Islamic State’s capture of Tel Shair hill west of the Kurdish center of Kobane in northern Syria: