Turkey- US coalition to launch “comprehensive battle” against Daesh

The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuso?lu, confirmed on Wednesday that its air bases have begun hosting US aircraft and drones, so that “comprehensive battle” would be launched against Islamic State.

After years of reluctance in taking a frontline role against the Islamist fighters in northern Syria, Turkey formally approved the use of its airbases by US and coalition aircraft late last month.

Turkey launched several air strikes against Islamic State fighters in northern Syria just under two weeks ago after one of its soldiers was killed in cross-border fire. It also carried out near-simultaneous attacks on camps belonging to the PKK Kurdish militant group in northern Iraq.

Turkey and the United States have been working on plans to provide air cover for a group of US-trained Syrian rebels and to jointly sweep ISIS fighters from a strip of northern Syria stretching about 50 miles along the Turkish border.

Diplomats familiar with the plans say cutting off ISIS’ access to the border, over which foreign fighters and supplies have flowed, could be a game-changer in the fight against the insurgents.

Turkish soldiers in the Syrian border / Reuters

MEETING WITH JOHN KERRY

“As part of our agreement with the US we have made progress regarding the opening up of our bases, particularly Incirlik,” Çavuso?lu told state broadcaster TRT, referring to a major air base near the southern city of Adana.

“We’re seeing that manned and unmanned American planes are arriving and soon we will launch a comprehensive battle against Islamic State all together,” he said during a trip to Malaysia.

Speaking at the start of a meeting with the American Secretary of State, said there had been movement on the ground since the two nations agreed to an anti-Daesh alliance late last month.

He added that the direct operation against Daesh would “then make the ground safer for the moderate opposition that are fighting Daesh on the ground.”

John Kerry and Mevlut Cavusoglu have travelled to Kuala Lumpur for a summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations, where Kerry is also due to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu / Getty

RUSSIA´S ROLE

Later on Wednesday, Kerry and Russia’s Lavrov were due to meet for the second time in three days to “discuss a range of issues of mutual concern” including the crisis in Syria, according to a senior US State Department official.

The pair previously held a trilateral meeting which included the Saudi foreign minister Abel al-Jubeir in Qatar on Monday, where the trio “acknowledged the need for a political solution to the conflict and the important role to be played by opposition groups in reaching that solution”.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the formation of a "wide anti-terrorist front" had been one of the main themes of the Kerry-Lavrov-Jubeir talks.

But there remains a huge dividing factor between the US and Saudi Arabia on one side and Russia and Iran on the other – what to do about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The American stance, shared by the majority of the West and its Gulf Arab allies, is that Assad must leave office before a resolution in Syria can be reached.

Iran and Russia, meanwhile, have stood by Assad throughout the country’s four-year civil war, and seem unlikely to abandon him now.