Amid allegations of Turkish collaboration with the Islamic State, the 2014 Kobanî protests broke out near the Syrian border city of Kobanî, in protest against the government's perceived facilitation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during the Siege of Kobanî. 42 protestors were killed during a brutal police crackdown. Asserting that aid to the Kurdish-majority People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters in Syria would assist the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (then on ceasefire) in Turkey, Erdoğan held bilateral talks with Barack Obama regarding IS during the 5–6 September 2014 NATO summit in Newport, Wales. In early October, United States Vice President Joe Biden criticised the Turkish government for supplying jihadists in Syria and said Erdoğan had expressed regret to him about letting foreign jihadists transit through Turkey en route to Syria. Erdoğan angrily responded, "Biden has to apologize for his statements" adding that if no apology is made, Biden would become "history to me." Biden subsequently apologised. In response to the U.S. request to use İncirlik Air Base to conduct air strikes against IS, Erdoğan demanded that Bashar al-Assad be removed from power first. Turkey lost its bid for a Security Council seat in the United Nations during the 2014 election; the unexpected result is believed to have been a reaction to Erdoğan's hostile treatment of the Kurds fighting ISIS on the Syrian border and a rebuke of his willingness to support IS-aligned insurgents opposed to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.