ANKARA, Turkey—As Kurdish rebels in northern Syria rack up wins against the ISIS group, Turkish media is abuzz with talk of a long-debated military intervention to push the Islamic extremists back from the Turkish border — a move that will also outflank any Kurdish attempts to create a state along Turkey’s southern frontier.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began chairing a National Security Council meeting Monday, only days after he vowed to prevent the Kurds from establishing a state in Syria.
Pro-government newspapers are rife with purported proposals, ranging from loosening the rules of engagement to give Turkish troops a freer hand to fire into Syria, to a tanks-and-troops invasion aimed at occupying a 110-kilometer (70-mile) long, 33-kilometer (20-mile) wide buffer zone.