News Digest

U.S. makes held talks with Syrian Kurdish group, could fuel tension with Turkey

The United States has held direct talks for the first time with a key Syrian Kurdish group, whose troops have been battling the Islamic State group, the State Department said Thursday. Previous contacts with the powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) had been handled through intermediaries. The PYD has close ties to the PKK, a Turkish Kurdish party that waged a militant campaign for Kurdish rights and has threatened to abandon a peace process with Turkey in response to the current attack on the Syrian town of Kobane by Islamic State militants. Turkey, the European Union and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist group. The U.S. has expressed frustration at Turkey’s hesitancy to battle IS, especially in the key border town of Kobane. But by refusing to bolster the Syrian Kurdish forces trying to defend the town of Kobane, Turkey has infuriated their brethren in the southeast part of the country.

This is an operation that involves the world against ISIL.

President Barack Obama

IS has also been circling in on Iraq. Thousands of civilians have been forced to leave their homes as a result of IS attacks on Iraq’s Anbar province and the Syrian town of Kobane on the Turkish border, the International Rescue Committee said, and the number is still rising. However, the Iraqi capital Baghdad is not in immediate danger from Islamic State jihadists despite battlefield gains by the group in the country’s west, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday.