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“The Turkish refusal to join this alliance raises question marks,” Mr. Muslim said. “We are sorry that the Turks are not part of that alliance. I believe that there are some parties in the Turkish government and some non-official parties that are supporting ISIS indirectly.”

Stefan Di Mistura, the United Nations envoy to Syria, went so far this week as to claim that Kobani could become “another Srebrenica,” referring to the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in 1995.

The statement was viewed with some puzzlement by locals on the ground, who said only a few hundred civilians were left in Kobani, with most having fled to Turkey or close to the Turkish border.

Mr. Hasimi dismissed the claims as “politicization,” designed to raise international support for military strikes against ISIS.

“The situation is quite terrible in Kobani, but we have seen similar tragedies in Syria. Let’s not fool ourselves,” he said. “Singling out Kobani and taking it out of context, and discussing it as if it were the only turning point in Syria is not a fair reading.

“It is not fair to the city of Aleppo, it is not fair to other cities which have been destroyed by the regime or by ISIS.

“This rhetoric is amazing as you are talking about a country that has lost almost 300,000 people.”

Turkey is also reluctant to help the YPG as it is a Syrian affiliate of the PKK, the Kurdish guerrilla group that has been fighting a long war with Ankara for greater autonomy.

Since it cut diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime in 2011, Ankara has consistently called for the removal of President Bashar Al-Assad from power.

Making the Assad regime a target as well as ISIS is a key demand by Turkey in response to pressure from President Barack Obama to join the international alliance.

But Mr. Hasimi said the rise of ISIS was the consequence of the West’s previous failure to tackle the Syrian regime, and that the removal of Mr. Assad remained pivotal to tackling extremism in the region.

“ISIS is a consequence, it’s not a reason,” he said.

“Obviously we have to deal with that threat, we have to find concrete answers, instead of this rhetoric.”