Isis: Turkey PM Rejects Criticism for Not Intervening to Protect Kobani Kurds

Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has countered criticism that the country has faced for not tackling the Islamic State (Isis) as it continues its offensive on the Syrian-Kurdish city of Kobani.

Davutoglu told the BBC in a televised interview that Turkey should not be expected to deploy its troops to Syria unless the US-led coalition conducted military action against Bashar al-Assad's regime.

He added that only the Syrian opposition fighters and Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters should be expected to defend the city from the IS attack.

"Saving Kobani, retaking Kobani and some area around Kobani from IS, there's a need for a military operation," he said in an interview with the BBC.

"If they [international coalition] don't want to send their ground troops, how can they expect Turkey to send Turkish ground troops with the same risks on our border."

"The only way to help Kobani since other countries don't want to use ground troops, is sending some peace oriented or moderate troops to Kobani. What are they? Peshmerga... and Free Syrian Army [Syrian opposition forces]."

Turkey has been reluctant to join the coalition of international forces launching air strikes against the terror group but has agreed to allowing Kurdish peshmerga forces to use Turkish territory to reach the embattled Syrian city.

Turkey has continued to call for a strategy that sees the removal of Assad and does not leave a vaccuum on the Turkish border of Kurdish militant or Syrian government forces. Davutoglu said the US should continue to train the Free Syrian Army if it wishes to send IS into retreat.

"Equip and train the Free Syrian Army so that if IS leaves, the regime should not come, so that if IS leaves, PKK terrorists should not come," he said.

"We will help any forces, any coalition, through air bases [within Turkey] or through other means if we have a common understanding to have a new pluralistic, democratic Syria."

The Syrian monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, estimates that at least 800 people - mostly IS militants and Kurdish fighters - have been killed in the month-long assault on the city.