Kobani has been ‘liberated,’ so what?


The Syrian town of Kobani has been "liberated" and the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) have been driven out of the area by the peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani.The fact that a city that has been under the hammer of bloodthirsty extremists has been saved is something to rejoice for everyone. Yet, the fact that so many Kurds in our southeastern provinces and in Istanbul took to the streets to wildly celebrate the Kobani "victory" is something we simply cannot understand when the religious extremists of ISIS are continuing to butcher Kurds in other parts of Syria and Iraq.In the same way we simply cannot comprehend why the Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) pushed the militant Kurds of Turkey into the streets and created chaos in several cities in the name of "protests" that were supposed to condemn Turkey's alleged inaction regarding the ISIS attacks on Kobani. Yet these same people have not displayed the same sensitivity when ISIS butchered so many Kurds and Yazidis in various parts of Iraq and Syria.Those who went into the streets after a call by the HDP for "peaceful demonstrations" in fact created havoc and violence, so much so that the government decided that if the reconciliation process is to go any further, first of all Kurds have to help restore public order as a priority. Even PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence in the prison on İmrali Island, went to extremes, sending messages to militant Kurds to respect public order and halt all forms of violence. The call was mostly heeded and yet there are still pockets of resistance in places like the troubled southeastern border city of Cizre close to Kobani.Today, many facts about Kobani have surfaced that the government did not want to reveal. It all shows how Turkey contributed to saving Kobani and how it addressed the sensitivity of Kurds. It also shows how Turkey was unjustly accused of collaborating with ISIS extremists.Both the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon said that Turkey had done a good job helping out Kurds in the fight to save Kobani. Barzani thanked Turkey publicly for allowing KRG peshmerga forces to transit throughTurkish territory from Iraq and enter Syria to fight the extremists, which was crucial for saving Kobani, as well as the U.S.-led coalition aerial bombardments. Turkey also reportedly helped peshmerga forces and provided them with arms and ammunition that was vital for the struggle in Kobani.Turkey was also commended by Britain for doing an excellent job in preventing potential extremists from travelling from European countries through Turkey and joining ISIS. There are growing reports that now, after the Paris attacks, Western intelligence has started cooperating with Turkey, providing information on extremists and, thus, Turkey is closing its borders to them.So at the end of the day it seems Kobani is simply an excuse. Those who are still after adventures are trying to create a Kobani in Turkey and are failing. They have tried to create a storm in a tea cup from Kobani and that too has failed. There is nothing to rejoice about Kobani as President Bashar Assad continues to butcher Syrians and ISIS is still wreaking havoc there. We should all be mobilizing to put an end to the many "Kobanis" in Syria and Iraq and then we can really wildly rejoice in the streets.