How to explain Turkey’s position? For decades, Turkey has fought to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state. Erdogan clearly feels that he owes the Kurds nothing, including those in Kobane. Hence his reluctance to give them any help when they were threatened by Isil. Just as Stalin ordered the Soviet army to hold back its advance and allow the Nazis to crush the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, so Turkey’s government clearly would not have been distressed if Isil had taken Kobane from the Kurds.