Sen. Marco Rubio called on Turkey to play a greater role in the U.S.-led effort against the Islamic State, saying it has a responsibility “as a member of NATO” to give safe haven to refugees fleeing battle-torn northern Syria.

Turkey agreed over the weekend to open its military bases for U.S. and coalition forces battling the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. But the Florida Republican chastised Turkey’s reluctance to allow Kurds and others from the embattled Syrian border town of Kobani to cross into Turkey.

“We shouldn’t be pressuring [Turkey] at all. They should be wanting to do this,” Rubio said Monday on Fox News. “In essence, all of those refugees, and the people fleeing a certain massacre, they are all going to go into Turkey.”

Rubio suggested Turkey is holding back due to its longstanding feud with Kurds, who are a majority in Kobani.

“They view the Kurds on the other side of the border as equally bad. So, in their mind, they’re not quite sure what to do from a domestic political perspective,” he said.



But Rubio says Turkey must step up and “act like a member of NATO.”

“The bottom line is, in the short term, the Turks have more at stake here than we do,” he said.

The senator also lashed out at Secretary of State John Kerry for suggesting Kobani doesn’t hold significant strategic importance for the U.S. effort against the Islamic State.

Kerry on Sunday said that while the situation in Kobani was a “tragedy,” the priority has always been to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and that "Kobani does not define the strategy for the coalition.”

Rubio called Kerry’s comments “absurd” because average Iraqis would be less inclined to support and join the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State if Kobani falls.

“It would be deeply demoralizing to this effort to allow [the Islamic State] to take territory. And for John Kerry to say that, proves to you how out of touch they are about this reality,” he said.

Washington Examiner