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NATO Gathering To Discuss IS Threat To Turkey

NATO Gathering To Discuss IS Threat To Turkey

NATO ambassadors are preparing to hold an emergency session to discuss the threat that Islamic State poses to Turkey.

During today's meeting, to be held in Brussels, diplomats will also debate recent airstrikes which Turkish warplanes have performed on some of the militant group's targets in Syria.

Following months of reluctance in Ankara, Turkey's approach to dealing with IS has changed considerably – and American jets have been given permission to use a strategically located Turkish base in Incirlik.

Turkey, one of NATO's 28 members, called for the extraordinary meeting under Article 4 of the organisation's treaty.

This allows a country to request assistance when they consider "their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened".

However, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Turkey has not made a request "for any substantial NATO military support".

The escalation in military activity by Turkey came amid increasing violence along the nation's border with Syria – with a suspected IS suicide bomber killing 32 people, some of them Kurds, in the border town of Suruc on 20 July.

Also high on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting will be plans to set up a "humanitarian safe zone" across Turkey's border with Syria – something discussed at length by Ankara and Washington, but not finalised.

Although US-backed Kurdish fighters control most of the 565-mile boundary between the two countries, Islamic State occupies a stretch which is approximately 60 miles long.

The creation of a buffer zone could open up a safe haven for thousands of Syrians who have been displaced by the crisis, but it would require air cover which would no doubt come from the US-led coalition.

Ground forces to hold and protect it would have to come from local contingents, or from a land deployment by members of the coalition – or Turkey itself.

Meanwhile, Turkey has denied targeting Kurdish fighters in Syria, after they claimed their positions had come under "heavy tank fire".

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD), urged the Turkish government to halt attacks after shells injured several fighters and Kurdish villagers outside an Islamic State-held town.

More than 1,000 people have been detained in a crackdown on militants in Turkey – with Islamic State, the PKK and the leftist DHKP-C among the groups targeted, according to Prime Minister Ahmed Davutoglu.