Under pressure Turkey steps up fight against IS

Ankara

Turkey is stepping up its role in the fight against Islamic State extremists after realising the threats to its own security from jihadists and responding to pressure from its Western partners, analysts say.

Turkish security forces have over the last week arrested dozens of IS militants and sympathisers, in its most significant raids since the group began to seize swathes of neighbouring Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Turkey has faced bitter accusations it was not doing enough to halt the rise of IS and even secretly colluding with the group -- allegations Ankara vehemently denies.

But analysts say the Turkish authorities have now clearly understood the domestic threat posed by IS, which rules its territory under a harsh version of Islamic law known for its brutality.

Ankara will also get nowhere in trying to prevent the Kurds, who have been battling IS in northern Syria, from establishing their own autonomous region there unless it supports the Western coalition against the jihadists. 

Turkey sees the main Syrian Kurdish political group the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), as offshoots of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in its southeast.