Although Turkey has already agreed to give United States assistance in clearing out the growing ISIS grounds in Syria, it also has its focus on eradicating Kurdish militants that threaten its security, which is an objective it has struggled to uphold for many years, New York Times reports.

According to the site, Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared during a NATO emergency summit assembly that there's no way a two-year-old peace process with them will work. In fact, he sees the Kurd extremists as capable of causing as much damage as the Islamic State, explaining its greater effort on taking them out.

The publication went on to say that Mr. Erdogan's renewed stand has courted doubts and raised eyebrows about his true motives, with some under the impression that he is more inclined in fighting off the Kurds than bringing down sweeping off Islamic State from its dominance.

New York Times says that if the tension between Kurd extremists and Turkey escalates, it will likely impede its efforts in helping out the US and other NATO alliances in eliminating ISIS from Syria and Iraq or at least, divert its attention and take away its full commitment.

At the moment, US and Turkey are yet to settle on which opposition groups in Syria it will back up, Reuters reports. Speaking to reporters during a briefing, an unrevealed official from the Obama administration said: "We have to sit down with the Turks and figure it out."

The representative added that there will be opposition groups in Syria they "absolutely will not work with." Apart from figuring that out, there's also the issue of learning how deep into Syria they could extend and how fast U.S. warplanes could start flying to combat missions from Turkish pedestals.

In addition, German Marshall Fund senior adviser Derek Chollet adds that settling this aspect is also being encumbered by the ongoing disagreement between Washington and Ankara with regards to Syria strategy.

"While our cooperation has steadily improved and the urgent crisis seems to have pushed us even closer, our differences are likely masked rather than fully resolved," Chollet, who once worked as an assistant secretary of defense under the Obama administration, said via Reuters.

According to the same publication, the US military has only trained 60 Syrian rebel fighters and those few had to qualify strict requirements. The publication says that fighters whose only objective is to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are often being excluded.