NATO ambassadors in Brussels reaffirmed “strong solidarity” with Turkey in a public declaration yesterday that could encourage Ankara to expand its current offensive military operations.

They condemned “terrorist attacks” against Turkey, taking in acts by the Islamic State (Isis) death cult and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

They took their line from Ankara Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said on Monday: “There is no difference between PKK and Daesh,” referring to Isis by its Arabic acronym.

There are many distinctions, not least that the PKK was set up as a last resort to fight for the national rights of Turkey’s Kurdish population whose language, national rights and very existence were denied.

It has responded to official measures to reduce anti-Kurdish discrimination by halting its armed struggle and pursuing a negotiated solution aimed at establishing autonomy within the Turkish state.

The PKK was goaded into resistance once more by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to bombard PKK camps in northern Iraq while launching air strikes against Isis in northern Syria.

Cavusoglu’s casual attempt to bestow terrorist equivalence on PKK and Isis neglects to recognise that, while Ankara frustrated PKK assistance to Syria’s Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) battling against Isis, it turned a blind eye to Isis units smuggling materials and recruits across the Turkish border.

Erdogan announced flatly last autumn that the besieged Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane would fall to Isis and closed the border to PKK units before finally acceding to Washington’s plea to allow Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga units to cross into Kobane to help turn the tide.

Apart from the Syrian Arab Army loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria have been the most effective combatants against Isis.

And yet Turkey coupled its air strikes on Isis with bombing raids on the PKK in Iraq and YPG in Syria.

Ankara’s belated hostility to Isis stems from the genocidal group carrying its war into Turkey by bombing a Kobane solidarity gathering in Suruc on July 19, slaughtering 32 Turkish citizens.Erdogan is finally cracking down on Isis supporters and recruiting sergeants in Turkey, as he should have done from the outset.

However, his project all along has been to overthrow the secular Assad government and to replace it with something more in tune with his own regime based on neoliberalism with a religious veneer.

Ankara requested the meeting in Brussels under a Nato treaty provision for emergency consultations when a member’s territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened.

There was no such threat from any Kurdish force, but Turkey intends to establish a so-called safe or buffer zone in northern Syria to be settled by anti-Assad armed groups acceptable to Ankara.

Most of Syria’s border with Turkey is currently controlled largely by YPG.

Erdogan’s decision to open the huge Incirlik airbase to US warplanes, after years of refusing to do so, is calculated to win Washington’s compliance for his Syrian bridgehead.

YPG spokesman Redur Khalil claims diplomatically not to see this plan as a threat, but Ankara assuredly pictures it as a weapon against both Assad and the Kurds.

The fact that the Nato meeting, while assuring Turkey of “strong solidarity,” felt moved to warn privately against excessive force and to urge a resumption of negotiations with PKK, illustrates the scale of US bridge-building with Kurds, especially in Iraq and Syria.

If Nato is serious about confronting Isis militarily and politically, it must work closely with all anti-Isis forces and that includes Damascus.