Summary
A convoy of Iraqi peshmerga fighters and weaponry made its way across southeastern Turkey Wednesday en route for the Syrian town of Kobani to try to help fellow Kurds break an ISIS siege which has defied U.S.-led airstrikes.
Weeks of airstrikes on ISIS positions around Kobani and the deaths of hundreds of their fighters have failed to break the siege.
It said preparations were being made at a border gate which ISIS fighters have repeatedly tried to capture for the arrival of the peshmerga, while YPG and ISIS forces exchanged fire in gun battles on the southern edge of the town.
Turkey has pushed for moderate Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad to join the battle against ISIS in Kobani.
The Iraqi Kurdish region's parliament voted last week to deploy some peshmerga to Syria and, under pressure from Western allies, Turkey agreed to let peshmerga forces from Iraq traverse its territory to reach Kobani.
A Syrian Kurdish official in Paris said on Wednesday that France, which has taken part in air strikes in Iraq and given Iraqi peshmerga fighters weapons and training, had yet to fulfil a pledge to give support to Kurds in Syria.
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