Kobane is a city, not just a town. It has - or had - a population of a quarter of a million. If Newcastle and Wollongong are cities, Kobane is a city.

Even under Ataturk, Turkey has never given up the notion that it is an empire, a continuation of the Ottoman Empire. But with thirty million people, the Kurds have the right to their own nation. A Kurdish nation has just as much right to exist as a Turkish nation.

Turkey has the equal right to exist as a nation, just not with oppressed minorities within its neo-imperial boundaries. Oppressed ? Until a decade ago, speaking Kurdish was an offence. Even now, Kurdish names are not allowed if they contain an X or W or Q, since these letters are not in the Turkish alphabet.

Meanwhile, no such restrictions are imposed on Arabs in Israel or Palestinians in the occupied territories. Both Palestinians and Kurds have the right to seek self-determination, and both Turkey and Israel have the right to exist as nations. So do Palestine and a Kurdish nation. Yes, the situations are quite different, but the days of Empire are surely over.

Joe

Turkey is more dangerous than the various 'Islamist' groups such as ISIL and Al-Nusra, Hesbulla and the Muslim Brotherhood. More dangerous as it is a formal, recognised 'state' and, indeed, a member of NATO. Islamist nonetheless, so more dangerous.
What the Turks are doing currently is what the Russian army did halting outside Wasaw during the Wasaw uprising against the Naziz. What a woefull crowd to be allied with, not to be trusted at any level and ejected from NATO as quickly asossible.
Were the Americans so in need of an alliance in that geographic region, the obvious solution is to support morally, economically, diplomatically and militarily the formation/recognition of a fully autonomous state incorporating Anatolian, Iraqui, Syrian and Kudristani territory.
The Sykes Pikot arrangement is now finished and, as advised by Colonel T E Lawrence and others at the time, Kurdistanis should have been 'allocated' their own homeland, similar to Israel, at the time of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.