Arbil/Riga: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday an agreement had been reached on sending 200 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters from Iraq through Turkey to help defend the Syrian border town of Kobani against Daesh militants.

He was speaking after Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers on Wednesday approved sending the fighters, marking the semi-autonomous region’s first military foray into Syria’s war.

“I have learnt that they finally reached agreement on a figure of 200 [fighters],” Erdogan told a news conference in the Latvian capital Riga.

Daesh, keen to consolidate territorial gains in northern Syria, has pressed an offensive on Kobani, also known as Ain Al Arab, even as US-led forces continue bombing the militants’ positions.

Erdogan on Thursday renewed criticism of the move, describing the main Kurdish force defending the town as a “terrorist” group.

“Did Turkey view this business positively? No it didn’t.

America did this in spite of Turkey and I told him Kobani is not currently a strategic place for you, if anything it is strategic for us,” he said of a telephone call with US President Barack Obama at the weekend.

Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers agreed on Wednesday to send much-needed reinforcements to fellow Kurds battling to stop Kobani from falling into the hands of Daesh.

The Kurds fighting in Kobani got a boost this week by the first US air drop of weapons and other supplies.

But the Pentagon confirmed reports that one of 28 bundles had drifted off course and was likely in the hands of Daesh forces after another one had missed and was destroyed by an air strike.

Earlier, a Daesh video showed a masked fighter opening wooden boxes filled with rockets and grenades.

Erdogan said some of the weapons had ended up with Daesh militants and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) — a Syrian Kurdish group Ankara does not support.

Ankara sees the PYD as the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) whose three-decade battle for self-rule in Turkey has left 40,000 people dead.

“Some of the air drops have fallen into the hands of the PYD and Daesh,” he said. “It’s impossible to achieve results with such an operation.”

Fighting continued in Kobani, with at least six US-led air strikes reported to have hit Daesh positions.

An AFP reporter across the border said heavy fighting broke out in the early evening in parts of the city, in what appeared to be a new Daesh offensive.

Backed by air strikes from a US-led coalition, Kurdish militia have been defending Kobani against a fierce Daesh offensive for more than a month.

The town on the Turkish border has become a crucial battleground in the fight against Daesh, an extremist Islamist group that has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.

Turkey said this week it would allow Iraqi Kurd Peshmerga fighters to travel to relieve Kobani’s defenders, and the Iraqi region’s parliament approved the move on Wednesday.

“The Kurdistan parliament decided to send forces to Kobani with the aim of supporting the fighters there and protecting Kobani,” speaker Yousuf Mohammad Sadeq said.

Mustafa Qader, responsible for the Peshmerga, said a decision would be made in the coming days about the number to be sent.

He did not say when the forces would arrive in Syria, but did say “they will remain there until they are no longer needed”.

Iraqi Kurdistan has its own borders, government and security forces, which have played a leading role in northern Iraq in combating Daesh.

After initially losing ground, the Kobani Kurds have fought back hard, with the US military saying they had halted the Daesh advance and held most of the town.

Most of the coalition raids have focused on Iraq, and Washington said a dozen air strikes had helped fend off an Daesh assault on the country’s strategic Mosul dam.

“There was an offensive action by the enemy in the vicinity of Mosul dam, a combination of US air strikes and Iraqi forces were able to repel that,” said a Pentagon spokesman.

‘Shoulder to shoulder’

On Wednesday, John Allen, who is coordinating the US-led campaign against the militant group, said Britain could join the United States “shoulder to shoulder” in operations against Daesh militants in Iraq and Syria.

Speaking after meeting the British foreign secretary, he told the BBC programme “we were shoulder to shoulder in Iraq, we were shoulder to shoulder in Afghanistan”.

Asked whether this meant that Britain would be involved in Syria as well as Iraq, Allen said “Well they will support us I think in the strategy... that’s a conversation we’re having right now.”

Daesh has lured thousands of foreigners to its ranks and has a following among many disaffected Muslims, raising fears of attacks in Western countries.