Global Research

Press TV has conducted an interview with Zayd al-Isa, Middle East expert from London, about Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) calling on all Kurdish fighters to cross into Syria to defend the city of Kobani against the advancing ISIL militants.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you feel about this statement coming out of the PKK? Certainly it seems to hit the mark on the head in the sense that Turkey has been supporting ISIL and now all these refugees are running into Turkey because of what it has done in Syria?

Al-Isa: Well it is hugely important and highly significant particularly that comes from the PKK who have been involved with intense ongoing negotiations with Turkey to sort out and deal with the issue of the Kurds within Turkey.

That casts serious doubts on the intention of the Turkish government particularly it comes hot on the heels of the highly suspicious freeing of the so-called Turkish hostages who were taken by ISIS when it swiftly moved into Mosul.

Now the Turkish government was basically saying that if the liberation of the hostages came through political and diplomatic negotiations which is highly suspicious because till now all the hostages held by ISIS whether they are Christians, Izadis and certainly Shias who were executed, now for Turkey to claim and that is [Ahmet] Davutoglu the Prime Minister that these are through our own methods and our means and using diplomatic negotiations, it really raised a lot of eyebrows and cast serious doubts on the links between Turkey and ISIS who have been providing ISIS with a vital, irreplaceable lifeline in terms of moving all the funding, arming, logistical support and even paying salaries to the Wahhabi Salafi mercenaries who converged on both Syria and also on Iraq to prop up the ISIS militants who have been widening their influence in the region.

Now it is vital to mention here that the Turkish government has till now provided the ISIS with a vital lifeline and we have seen that Turkey adamantly refused to participate in any airstrikes launched against the ISIS or to join the so-called coalition of the willing that the Americans have been actually trying to go up together from the countries who have played a major or if not a leading part in propping up and reviving ISIS and these are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Press TV: Do you then think that Turkey has essentially irreversibly created a situation where there will be blowback for itself obviously because it has been harboring these militants and secondly it is now angering the Kurds within the country as well?

Al-Isa: But the ultimate overarching goal of Turkey has been that is inclusion and in cooperation with both Saudi Arabia and Qatar is to oust the Syrian regime.

That is the utmost priority, destabilize Iraq and weaken the Iraqi government with the ultimate goal of creating a regional government in the Western area of Iraq and also the irreplaceable goal of Saudi Arabia has been to roll back and dramatically and severely undermine the ever-growing Iranian influence and that is why we have seen the ISIS being armed, financed and also provided logistical support.

And the strategy have been widened from focusing simply on Syria in order to topple the Syrian regime to also include and engulf Iraq by pushing or giving the green light to ISIS to move into Iraq and move ever closer to the Iranian border to use it as a means or leverage to rolling back what the Saudis have claimed that the Iranian influence have grown and they find it as their overarching goal to actually destabilize Iraq …