ANKARA, Oct. 22 -- Turkey has moved to change its position on helping Kurdish populated Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ayn al-Arab, fight Islamic State (IS) militants after pressure from own Kurdish population as well as from a U.S.-led Western coalition.

"After weeks of sitting and watching the battle unfold just as a stone's throw away, rather like a movie in a cinema, Turkey has adjusted its policy, finally allowing the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Peshmerga forces cross into Syria through the Turkish border to assist Kurdish fighters already on the ground," said Amanda Paul, expert on Turkey.

"Turkey's change in policy seems to be principally due to increased pressure from its own Kurdish population," she added.

The reversal in the policy was announced on Monday by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu who said Turkey has been providing assistance to Peshmerga forces to cross into Kobane.

On Wednesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put a positive spin on the reversal, saying that it was him who actually proposed the idea of sending Peshmerga forces to Kobane over a phone conversation he had with U.S. President Barack Obama last week.

"I had already offered this proposal to him," Erdogan said in a press briefing just before departing for Latvia on an official visit.

However, the Turkish president also criticized the U.S. weapons airdrops over Kobane to replenish ammunition of Kurdish fighters who face depleting stocks against IS militants. "They (Americans) accepted that some of the weapons (meant for the Kurds) were seized by IS. Such an operation is inexplicable," he said.

Erdogan was referring to an on-line video showing IS militants with a bundle of airdropped supplies that were dropped for the Kurds early on Monday.

The cache of weapons included hand grenades, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, according to the video.

The U.S. said on Tuesday the vast majority of the U.S. supplies had reached the Kurdish fighters despite the cache seized by the IS. "This move seems to show that the U.S. has shifted its position, because only a short time ago they were preparing for Kobane's fall," Paul underlined.

In fact, that shift now exerts more pressure on Turkey to re- evaluate its position on arming Kurds in Syria.

Kurds in Turkey had staged violent protests two weeks ago over government unwillingness to help support Kobane's defenses, resulting in the death of 40 Turkish citizens and the wide-scale destruction of properties across many provinces.

The tension still lingers in Turkey's predominantly southeastern region where a member of Huda-Par, a Kurdish Sunni Islamist party, was killed in an attack in the province of Bingol early on Wednesday.

The violent events also jeopardized the settlement process Turkish government launched in 2012 with the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) to disarm the militant group in exchange for broader rights and freedoms for Kurdish population.

Compounding the picture in Kobane is the position of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which is seen by Ankara as the Syrian affiliate group of the PKK and supporter of the Syrian Bashar al- Assad regime, an arch-foe of Turkey.

The PKK is listed as terrorist organization in Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Turkish President Erdogan insisted on Wednesday that any assistance provided to the Syrian Kurdish group PYD that has been defending Kobane amounted to support for the PKK.

The U.S. said, however, that the PYD, unlike the PKK, is not listed as terrorist organization in the U.S. and revealed it is officially engaged with PYD.

"Washington's shift towards engaging directly with the PYD in northern Syria signifies an important shift in the region," said Suat Kiniklioglu, Executive Director of the Ankara-based Center for Strategic Communication.

"Patience in Washington has run out with Ankara's short-sighted policy of strangling the Kobane Kurds into submission," he underlined, adding that "the Turkish position on Kobane was untenable from the beginning."