Ros-Lehtinen blasts Turkey as slow to act on ISIS

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is strongly criticizing Turkey’s government, saying it has not done enough to battle Islamic militants.

“It has done so little. It has been a player, not for the solution, but part of the problem,” she said during an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday. “Because of their internal political issues, they’ve let that get in the way of truly defeating” the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS).

{mosads}Her comments come a day after Turkey’s top diplomat announced Ankara had changed its policy and would allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to cross through Turkey into Syria to fight the terror group in the Syrian border town of Kobani.

The town, just a few miles from the Turkish border, has become a flashpoint in the U.S.-led coalition’s fight against the terror group. The coalition has launched roughly 140 strikes in and around the town and the United States dropped arms and other supplies to the besieged security forces there. The security forces are comprised of Syrian Kurds.

Turkey has a long history of conflict with Kurdish separatist groups inside its own borders and has been reluctant to assist them in any way.

Ros-Lethinen called Ankara’s reversal a “positive step forward.”

But she added that for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “who has been so non-appreciative of international efforts to remove the cancer that is ISIS, any small step could be considered a big step.”

She said she hopes the policy shift means Erdogan will become more of an “international player for the positive good.”

The Florida lawmaker also praised the recent U.S. airdrop.

“We think this could be a turning point,” said the congresswoman, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby dismissed criticism that Turkey has not done enough to date.

“They have got more than a million refugees they are trying to deal with, and doing quite well with that. And they have a foreign fighter-flow all by themselves, a problem with that as well,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “They are in this coalition. They have said they are going to contribute. We know that they will.”