Kurdish ministry denies report on Oct 26 Peshmerga passage to Kobane

ARBIL

An elite unit of women Kurdish Peshmerga fighters is seen during a training in Sulaimaniyah in this file photo. AP photo

The General Secretary of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs of the autonomous Kurdish Regional  Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has denied a report that the Kurdish Peshmerga forces would start their passage to Kobane on Oct 26.

"News on when the Peshmerga will start their passage is incorrect. We reject it no matter who the source is," Jabar Yawar told the Anadolu Agency Oct. 25.

Earlier in the day, website Rudaw had quoted Kurdish sources as saying that a 150-member Peshmerga group will head to the besieged Syrian border town on Oct. 26 via Turkey. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Oct. 24 that he has learned the number of Iraqi Peshmerga fighters allowed to go to Kobane under jihadist fire for about one month through Turkey has been decreased to 150 from the initially announced 200.

The Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Kurdish group fighting in Syria against jihadists, has also agreed to the passage of 1,300 Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters to the Syrian border town of Kobane, Erdoğan said in Estonia.

These will be the first foreign troops to provide aid to Syrian Kurdish fighters in the city. 

The Kurdish parliament in Arbil approved unanimously earlier last week to send Peshmerga forces to Kobane.

The denied Rudaw report said that members of the contingent are packed and ready to move through Turkey “without a passport and they need only their military IDs.”

"It is a military secret and we have not informed anybody of the date of passage," Anadolu quoted KRG’s Yawar as saying. 

On Oct. 24, the Turkish General Staff issued a clarification emphasizing that no details have yet been released on how Iraqi Kurds will travel across Turkey to join the Syrian Kurdish forces fighting in the border town against ISIL.