Iraqi peshmerga fighters arrive in Turkey for Syria deployment

(Reuters) - Iraqi peshmerga fighters arrived in southeastern Turkey early on Wednesday ahead of their planned deployment to the Syrian town of Kobani to help fellow Kurds repel an Islamic State advance, a Reuters witness said.

A Turkish Airlines plane touched down in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa at around 1:15 am (2315 GMT) amid tight security. A convoy of white buses escorted by armored jeeps and police cars left the airport shortly afterwards.

Kobani, nestled on the border with Turkey, has been besieged by Islamic State for more than a month and its fate has become an important test of the U.S.-led coalition's ability to combat the Sunni insurgents.

Weeks of U.S.-led air strikes on the insurgents' positions and the deaths of hundreds of their fighters have failed to break the siege.

The Islamic State has threatened to massacre Kobani's defenders in an assault which has sent almost 200,000 Syrian Kurds fleeing to Turkey, and triggered a call to arms from Kurds across the region.

The Iraqi Kurdish region's parliament voted last week to deploy some peshmerga to Syria and, under pressure from Western allies, Turkey agreed to let peshmerga forces from Iraq traverse its territory to reach Kobani.

Saleh Moslem, co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said late on Tuesday that around 150 peshmerga were expected to reach the area of Kobani overnight.

A separate group of peshmerga fighters is thought to be traveling to the Turkish border region by land. A Kurdish television channel showed footage of what it said was a convoy of peshmerga vehicles loaded with weapons en route to the area.