Special to WorldTribune.com

An official with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ordered attacks on the PKK to prevent the Kurds’ advances against Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

“The Turkish claim they are fighting Islamic State… but in fact they are fighting the PKK,” Cemil Bayik said on Aug. 10 in a BBC interview. “They are doing it to limit the PKK’s fight against IS (ISIL). Turkey is protecting IS.”

After a series of terror attacks on Turkish soil, Erdogan in late July ordered simultaneous air strikes against ISIL targets in Syria and Kurdish forces in Iraq.

PKK fighters have had success in battles against ISIL in northern Iraq, but Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist group and accuses them of carrying out a number of attacks in Turkey.

The leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party said that a proposed U.S.-Turkish buffer zone in Syria to counter the ISIL was merely a cover by Erdogan to stop the Kurds from forming their own state.

“Turkey doesn’t intend to target IS with this safe zone. The Turkish government was seriously disturbed by Kurds trying to create an autonomous state in Syria,” Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) chairman Selahattin Demirtas told the BBC.

“The safe zone is intended to stop the Kurds, not IS. In fact, Turkey should work with Kurdish forces to create this area. They should collaborate,” Demirtas said.

Late last month, Turkey gave the U.S. permission to use one of its key air bases. On Aug. 9, the U.S. deployed six F-16s to Incirlik air base to join coalition air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

  Cemil Bayik, Kurdish leader: Turkey’s Erdogan ‘is protecting ISIL’, Peoples’ Democratic Party, PKK, using safe zone to ‘stop the Kurds’, WorldTribune.com