The main pro-Kurdish party in Turkey has urged the government to allow “volunteers” to cross over into the Syrian town of Kobani to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or the ISIL. 

Selahattin Demirtas, opposition leader of the Peoples' Democratic Party, or the HDP, said Tuesday that there were “tens of thousands Kurdish youth,” who were ready to take on the militant group if the Turkish-Syrian border gates into Kobani were opened.

He made the remarks at a party meeting.

He clarified his party was not demanding the direct involvement of Turkish troops in Kobani and instead wanted its own “volunteers” to engage with the ISIL.

Earlier, leader of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahceli, had questioned Demirtas why their supporters did not go to Kobani to fight the militants themselves. 

Demirtas warned the Turkish government of a possible adverse “reaction” of the Kurdish people in Turkey if Kobani eventually fell into ISIL hands.

He added that if Kobani fell, the Turkish government would be held responsible for the massacres that take place there.

"It will cause a big friction among the Kurds in Turkey and the ‘solution’ process will also end completely," he warned.

The political leader was referring to the peace process that is aimed at ending a more than 30 year-old conflict between Turkey and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK.  

Demirtas slammed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for equating PKK with the ISIL; and said the two were not the same.

"If both organizations are the same for the government, then why are you approaching the PKK? Why have you been sending delegations to Imrali, where the PKK’s Kurdish leader is jailed?” he asked. 

İmrali is an island in the south of the Marmara Sea that comes under Turkey’s Bursa province.

AA