Turkey has launched its latest escalation of the war in Syria.
It has started bombing Syria supposedly to deal with ISIS there.
However at least as much a target of its bombing campaign is the Kurdish group the PKK, with whom the Turkish state has in recent years had a ceasefire.
The latest escalation follows a suicide bombing by ISIS which killed a number of young people who were planning to help rebuild the war torn city of Kobane, centre of Kurdish resistance. The bombing was used as a pretext to start Turkey’s campaign against terrorism, which equated ISIS and the PKK.
This is despite the fact that the PKK and its allies in Syria have been central to opposition to ISIS there.
Turkey has been able to take this step because of tacit backing from the US. The two countries recently made a deal to allow US bombers to use the Incirlik airbase to bomb Syria, rather than having to fly from the Gulf as they have up to now.
In return there are talks of the US backing a Turkish buffer zone inside the Syrian border. This buffer zone would be used against the Kurds.
Turkey is a Nato member and called an urgent meeting of Nato members to endorse its actions. It claims that ISIS and the PKK are the same. While many Nato members do not necessarily agree with this, they are likely to go along with it.
Meanwhile David Cameron is threatening another Commons vote to authorise the bombing of Syria, this time against ISIS, unlike his defeated vote two years ago which was aimed at bombing Assad.
