The Turkey-Islamic State (IS) confrontation and Ankara's decision to provide the United States with a staging area for delivering air strikes against the IS are the results of a US-Turkish deal, Ruben Safrastyan, Director of the Oriental Studies Institute of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, has told ArmInfo.
He says that a US high-ranking delegation recently visited Turkey. Afterwards, a cooperation arrangement was finally reached in a phone conversation between US President Barack Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "Turkey has been trying to receive a permit for occupation of the Syrian territory, where it is going to create a buffer zone. Given Ankara's behavior, they have reached an agreement under the guise of imitated fight against the IS," says the expert. In the meantime, he thinks that the IS may take retaliatory measures and commit acts of terrorism in Turkey.
To note, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan allowed the US servicemen to deliver air strikes against the IS in Iraq and Syria from the Incirlik military base in the southeast of the country. Turkey has delivered strikes against the IS positions and destroyed the Islamists' four facilities in Syria. By the preliminary data, the strikes claimed 35 militants' lives. The strikes were delivered following the intelligence's reports that the militants started deploying heavy armament in one of the villages near the border with Turkey.