Turkish soldiers stand guard as Syrians wait behind the border fences near the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province, September 18, 2014.

Turkey on Friday opened up its border to thousands of Syrian Kurds fleeing clashes with Islamic State (ISIS) insurgents in neighbouring Syria, Reuters reported.

ISIS militants have seized 60 Kurdish villages near the Turkish border in a lightning two-day campaign, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday.

Their advance comes as the United States draws up plans for military action in Syria against the Sunni Muslim extremist group which has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq and seeks to set up an Islamic caliphate in the heart of the Middle East.

Turkey is already sheltering more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees and fears hundreds of thousands more, waiting in the mountains on the Syrian side of the 900-km border, could seek to cross as fighting escalates.

“We will take in our brothers fleeing to Anatolia from Syria or any other place without any ethnic or sectarian discrimination,” Davutoglu told reporters in Azerbaijan.

“The entries have started now,” he said. “We have taken in 4,000 brothers. The number might increase. Their needs will be met. This is a humanitarian mission.”

The move came after Ankara, which is sheltering some 1.5 million refugees from the Syrian conflict, refused to take in more fearing it would not be able to cope.

“As long as Turkey remains strong, and has a capacity, it will help everyone seeking refuge,” the prime minister said.

Live television footage showed Syrian Kurds, mostly women and children, crossing to the Turkish side of the border in the southeastern village of Dikmetas, under tight security.

Exhausted refugees carrying bags over their heads were handed food and water, as children cried on their laps, according to the live broadcast by CNN-Turk television. Some women fainted, the footage showed.

An elderly woman in wheelchair standing was seen waiting behind Turkey’s security force to cross the border, while a Turkish soldier held the hand of a child. The security forces appeared to be expanding the corridor to allow easier passage for the Syrians.

Sounds of gunfire were still being heard in Dikmetas, in a sign of ongoing clashes, reports said.

Ankara, a vocal critic of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has maintained an open-door policy to Syrian refugees. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week however the army was mulling the prospect of setting up a buffer zone along the volatile border.

 
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