Kurds in Kobane seem to accept Free Syrian Army help offer - Erdogan

ANKARA, Oct 24 (KUNA) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unveiled Friday that Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) fighters who are battling the militant Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have accepted a help offer from the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
"We meticulously said that our approach is very positive toward the FSA's fighting in Syria," Erdogan said in a joint press conference with his Estonian counterpart, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, in Talinn, the Estonian capital.
"We always said that our first preference in Syria is the FSA, and the second preference is peshmerga." "Now they (Kurdish fighters) seemed to have accepted some 1,300 troops from the FSA," he said.
He, however, cautioned that the Syrian Kurdish fighters could change their minds in the future.
"The PYD previously approved the passage of some 200 peshmerga forces," Erdogan said.
"We later learned that the number agreed has changed and now it is only 150 peshmerga soldiers." Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region has announced sending send up to 200 fighters to aid the Kurdish fighters defending the embattled Syrian border town of Kobane against a fierce ISIL offensive for more than a month.
The town on the Turkish border has become a crucial battleground in the fight against the ISIL group, which overran large parts of Iraq in June and also holds significant territory in Syria. (end) rs.ibi