TURKISH MPs were expected to back a motion today to send troops into neighbouring Syria and Iraq to battle so-called Islamic State (Isis) militants.

Isis fighters, meanwhile, were steadily advancing in Syria on Kurdish town Kobane, apparently unaffected by reported US air strikes.

Kurdish fighters said they were preparing for street-to-street combat against on the brutal militants.

Turkey has hitherto shied away from attacking Isis, ostensibly because the jihadist group was holding a number of Turks prisoner.

However, the 46 hostages were released last month and Turkey has still failed to take on the militants.

Residents of besieged Kabane have claimed that Turkey has been collaborating with Isis in a bid to “crush” Kurds in the Rojava region, even allowing Qatari support to Isis to cross the border.

Kurds have carved out the small enclave for themselves, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad temporarily letting it be so he can concentrate on fighting other rebel groups.

The region is dominated by the Kurdish Peoples Defence Units (YPG), who are friendly to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which Turkey and Western powers consider to be a terrorist organisation.

PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan warned in comments released yesterday that if Turkey allowed Isis to enter Kobane and conduct a massacre, PKK peace talks with Ankara would collapse.

“I urge everyone in Turkey who does not want the process and the democracy voyage to collapse to take responsibility in Kobane,” the imprisoned leader said in a statement given to visitors on Wednesday.

But some suspected the real target of the parliamentary motion — which also allows foreign forces to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria from Turkish soil — was the PKK.

The vote would allow Turkey to attack “armed terrorist groups,” which Ali Sirmen of opposition daily Cumhuriyet said could mean the PKK.

“We understand that one of the government’s targets across the border is the PKK. Does the government think that the PKK continues to be an armed terror organisation?” he asked.

If Isis successfully took the town it would control vast uninterrupted swathes of land neighbouring the Turkish border.