NORTHERN INTERVENTION: The Turkish army seems determined, come what may, to enter northern Iraq, reports Nicholas Birch in Diyarbakir.
Consensus is a rare commodity in Turkish politics. But if there is one issue that seems to have brought almost all parties here together, it is of the need for some level of military presence in neighbouring northern Iraq.
What makes such agreement all the more striking is that it has been criticised on all sides. Angered by the Turkish parliament's refusal on March 1st to permit US assault troops to use Turkey as a springboard for a northern front against Iraq, Washington insists earlier plans for limited Turkish participation in an invasion force are off.
"We're making it very clear that we expect [the Turks\] not to come into Iraq," President Bush said on Sunday. "They know our policy." While Kurdish authorities in de facto autonomous northern Iraq continue to warn that Turkish intervention could lead to a "war within a war", European leaders say it would seriously set back Turkish hopes of joining the EU.
Such criticisms have done little to dent Ankara's sense of purpose. In Turkey since last Friday, the US special envoy to the Iraqi opposition, Mr Zalmay Khalilzad, admitted yesterday that discussions on Turkish-US military co-operation were continuing. "This is a difficult and complicated issue," he said. "We will continue discussions over the next few days." What international pressure undoubtedly has done, however, is to increase the ambiguity of Turkish official statements. Reports last week that up to 1,500 Turkish troops had crossed into northern Iraq through the south-eastern border town of Cukurca were confirmed on Thursday by senior Turkish ministers, only to be denied on Friday by the military.
Faced with such secretiveness, estimating the size and nature of Turkish military presence along Turkey's 210-mile long border with Iraq is difficult. The eastern districts of Cukurca and Hakkari, and the more western border post of Habur, are closed to the press, and the military refuses to release details of troop numbers.
Local sources, however, put Turkish troop presence in the border area at upwards of 100,000 men, a sixth of Turkey's total standing force. Some 50,000 soldiers, they say, are based around the western tip of the Turkish-Iraqi frontier, in the mountains between the towns of Silopi and Sirnak.
"Two or three convoys a week have been passing through the town for the last six weeks," says one resident of Silopi, adding that around 5,000 soldiers are stationed between Silopi and the border post of Habur, 15 miles down the road. Other locals confirm that the convoys have been carrying T-60 and Leopard tanks, armoured cars, jeeps and bridging equipment. The military refuses to comment on local claims that approximately 1,000 troops and some tanks crossed into northern Iraq through Habur last week.
Whether or not there was an incursion last week, there is no doubt Turkish troops have been present in northern Iraq for years.
At the height of the Turkish state's war with the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), up to 20,000 soldiers crossed the border to destroy guerrilla bases in the Iraqi mountains. Turkey intervened again in 1996, as part of a US-led initiative to end conflict between the two Kurdish parties that have controlled northern Iraq since 1991.
At a peace deal signed in 1997, Turkey was given the right to station a limited number of tanks and troops at two locations 20 miles south of the Turkish border. Turkey also insisted on setting up and controlling a "peace-keeping" force of around 500 men, mainly members of northern Iraq's small Turkish-speaking Turkoman population, to act as a buffer between Kurdish groups. The force has been based in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil.
What is disputed is the size of the Turkish force. While northern Iraqi officials put it at no more than 500, others estimate it could be as large as 2,000. Despite the refusal of Turkish officials to give a date for a possible Turkish incursion into Iraq, sources close to the government suggest a new agreement on military co-operation with the US could be close.
"Turkey has given the green light to the US demands to deploy helicopter-borne rescue teams in three airbases in the Turkish south-east," said the source. "In return permission for limited Turkish presence in Iraq is likely to be given." But while Turkish ministers insist their role in Iraq will be purely humanitarian, Kurds who are a majority in Turkey's south-east are more sceptical.
"Turkey's army is inhumane," said Diyarbakir schoolteacher Mr Ibrahim Erguvenc.
"Letting them in is inviting a massacre."