Turkish riots over failure to aid Kurds leave 21 dead

At least 21 people were killed in riots across Turkey, the deadliest street unrest in years, after the Kurdish minority rose up in fury at the government’s refusal to protect a besieged Syrian Kurdish town from Islamic State.

Street battles raged between Kurdish protesters and police across Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, in Istanbul and in Ankara, as the fallout from war in Syria and Iraq threatened to unravel the Nato member’s own delicate peace process with Kurds.

Across the frontier, US-led air strikes appeared to have pushed Islamic State insurgents back to the edges of the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani, which the militants had been poised to capture this week after a three-week siege.

Washington said its war planes, along with those of coalition ally the United Arab Emirates, had struck nine targets in Syria, including six near Kobani that hit Islamic State artillery and armoured vehicles. It also struck Islamic State positions in Iraq five times. Nevertheless, Kobani remained under intense bombardment from Islamic State weaponry within sight of Turkish tanks that have so far done nothing to help.

US officials were quoted voicing impatience with the Turks for refusing to join the coalition against Islamic State fighters who have seized wide areas of Syria and Iraq. Turkey says it could join but only if Washington agreed to use force against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as well as the Sunni Muslim jihadists fighting him in a three-year-old civil war.

Turkey’s own Kurds, who make up the majority in the southeast of the country, say that President Tayyip Erdogan is stalling while their brethren are killed in Kobani.

Police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators who burned cars and tyres. Authorities imposed curfews in at least five provinces.

Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkey’s own peace process with Kurdish separatists would not be wrecked by “vandalism”.

Disturbances spread to other countries, with Kurdish and Turkish populations. Police in Germany said 14 people were hurt in clashes there between Kurds and radical Islamists.