TURKEY: Mr Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's previously banned leader, was last night declared the winner of a by-election which will enable him to become prime minister, writes Leyla Boulton in Ankara.
Mr Erdogan (49) won a seat in the south-eastern constituency of Siirt, a poor pistachio-growing area close to Turkey's border with Iraq. In the four months since his Justice and Development party (AKP) won an electoral landslide, Mr Erdogan has been in power but not in office.
His colleague, Abdullah Gul, who has served as prime minister in the interim, is expected to resign to make way for Mr Erdogan to form a new government. Mr Gul is likely to be given a top post in the new administration.
Casting a shadow over yesterday's by-election was US pressure on Turkey to allow the presence of 62,000 troops on Turkish soil for possible deployment against Iraq.
The Turkish parliament rejected a government motion which would have cleared the way for this 10 days ago. Although Mr Erdogan is widely expected to resubmit the resolution to parliament, visiting US congressmen left Ankara at the weekend unclear as to when this might occur.
"The American hurry is about not wanting to change from winter uniforms to summer uniforms," said the official. "This is not proportionate to our concerns, which have to do with our region, our domestic politics and international legitimacy."
For all its reservations, Turkey has its own reasons for supporting its closest ally. Washington has sought rapid clarification from Ankara in order to stick to its timetable for an early strike against Iraq, with a second front through Turkey being seen by the US as essential to shortening any war and minimising casualties. In return, Turkey would secure a say in political arrangements in Iraq after a war. It would also gain a massive US war compensation package to buttress its fragile debt-ridden economy against the negative effects of any conflict.
Mr Erdogan had been banking on the US package, said to amount to about $24 billion in cheap guaranteed loans, to soften the fiscal austerity of Turkey's existing economic stabilisation agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
On Saturday, the IMF announced that it had reached agreement with Ankara on the terms for disbursing a $1.6 billion loan under the existing programme. The IMF's board could approve the loan at the beginning of April if Turkey has by then fulfilled all the conditions it agreed to. It is also possible, however, that Turkey might backtrack on some of the IMF conditions once it had secured the US money.