Turkey seeks to bolster ties with Syrian Kurds Female Kurdish fighters in Syria Barely more than a year after Turkey appeared to threaten military force against a Kurdish group in Syria, Ankara is looking to bolster ties with the organisation amid fears that its battle with Islamist militants could undermine Turkish security and further set back efforts to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. The move comes as Ankara is increasing its contacts with Kurdish groups in Turkey and across the region. Next month, Turkey is set to sign an energy deal with the Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraq, once routinely denounced by Ankara but now a close ally. Turkey has also embarked on a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers" party, or PKK, which it has fought for three decades. PKK fighters have begun withdrawing from Turkish territory under a ceasefire that has held for the past few months despite strains and mutual suspicions. Turkish officials have long been deeply suspicious of the Syrian Kurdish grouping, the PYD, because, unlike the Kurds of northern Iraq, it is an offshoot of the PKK. Twelve months ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, hinted at military action when he declared: "We will not allow a terrorist group to establish camps in northern Syria and threaten Turkey." Since then, however, the eruption of intense fighting on the Turkish-Syrian border between the PYD and militant Islamists has rattled Ankara. Jabhat Al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaeda, is among the fiercest opponents of Mr Assad, who Turkey would like to see toppled. But Ankara not only complains of collateral damage from the fighting - including the deaths of its own civilians - it also believes such skirmishes have distracted rebels in the more moderate Free Syrian Army from sending reinforcements to crucial battlegrounds in Aleppo and Homs. Last month, Turkey invited Salih Muslim, the PYD leader, to Ankara and Istanbul, where he met a senior foreign ministry official and members of the country's intelligence service. More meetings are foreseen, possibly even as early this week. Turkish officials voice caution about the outcome. "We are trying to bring the PYD into the [Syrian] opposition, recognising them as a major actor in Syrian politics, trying to make them understand that Turkey is not against Kurds," said one official. Fighting between the PYD and Jabhat Al-Nusra has spread far beyond the flashpoint border town of Ras al-Ayn, where the two sides have clashed intermittently since last year. "Our houses have been flattened," said Sultan, an elderly Syrian Kurdish refugee, who fled a week ago from the oil-rich province of Hasaka to the Turkish border town of Nusaybin. "May God not allow anyone to be in these conditions," she added, overwhelmed by tears as she remembered her son, who was killed in the fighting. Many Kurds accuse Turkey - which unsuccessfully opposed US attempts to have Jabhat Al-Nusra labelled a terrorist group - of having aided the jihadists, claims Turkish officials strongly deny. Over the weekend, Mr Muslim said Turkish arms still flowed into the region, allegedly to Jabhat Al-Nusra, but stressed he believed in the good intentions of the Turkish government. Groups such Al-Nusra, not the Kurds, were the real threat to Turkey's security, said Alan Semo, a PYD representative. "If you are going to work with us, we can protect you from these jihadists," he said, addressing the Turkish government. The strains in the relationship between Turkey and the Kurds on both sides of the frontier are evident in border towns such as Kiziltepe. Twelve truckloads of humanitarian aid comprising goods such as nappies, wipes and children's biscuits sent by a group of Kurdish women to Kurds in Syria languished at the border gate near Kiziltepe for two days - with Turkish authorities claiming the aid had not gone through the proper channels - before finally starting to make their way across at the weekend. But Ayse Gokkan, the mayor of nearby Nusaybin and one of those who had organised the aid, remains optimistic. "I think Turkey is trying to do better with the Kurds everywhere - in Iraq, Syria and Turkey [itself]," she said, even as Turkish troops directly behind her blocked the aid from passing into Syria. Ankara has suggested it may introduce a more official aid distribution system, as is the case with the more Arab western part of the border. Ms Gokkan believes that Ankara is slowly reconciling itself to living with a new, near-autonomous Kurdish entity on its border. Talks with the PYD are "a new, positive step," she says. We just hope this communication and relationship continue. Ultimately, a more extensive Turkish accommodation with the PYD depends on whether the peace process with the PKK succeeds, says Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat now at the Carnegie Europe think-tank. "Remember that the PYD are an offshoot of the PKK," he says. A more ambitious settlement between Turkey and the PYD may well occur - but I can hardly see how that will happen if the peace process collapses here.