(Adds comments from Syrian Kurdish official)
BAGHDAD/BEIRUT, Oct 14 (Reuters) - A senior Iraqi Kurdish
official said on Tuesday that Iraq's Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) had provided military assistance to Syrian
Kurdish forces battling Islamic State fighters in the town of
Kobani.
However, the Syrian Kurds in the town said they had received
nothing so far, and a Syrian Kurdish official in the region said
the shipment had been "symbolic" and was stuck elsewhere in
northeast Syria.
Hamid Darbandi, the KRG official responsible for Syrian
Kurdish affairs in Iraq, said: "We helped them in roughly every
arena. We sent them aid, including military."
He declined to provide further details, or to say how the
weapons had been delivered to the town, which borders Turkey to
the north and is besieged by Islamic State fighters to the east,
south and west.
A Syrian Kurdish official said the KRG had sent a "symbolic"
arms shipment, but that it had not reached Kobani because Turkey
would not open the transit corridor sought by the Syrian Kurds
to allow them to reinforce the town.
The aid, including ammunition for light weapons and mortar
shells, is stuck in a Kurdish-controlled region of northeastern
Syria, Alan Othman, spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish military
council in the area, said via Skype.
The Syrian Kurdish forces fighting better-armed Islamic
State fighters in Kobani said they had received no supplies. "We
haven't received a single bullet," Esmat Al-Sheikh, head of
Kobani's defence council, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Othman said the shipment from the KRG was "no more than
symbolic". "It remained in the Jazeera canton," he said, using
the Kurdish name for the northeastern Syrian province that
borders Iraq.
But a second Iraqi Kurdish official, speaking on condition
of anonymity, said the KRG had managed to send ammunition to
Kobani:
"I can assure you that there have been shipments, and there
will be more as well. As far as we know, it has made some
difference," the official said, adding that the shipments had
started last week.
(Reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil and Tom Perry in Beirut;
Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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