TURKEY: Turkey's parliament voted yesterday yesterday to allow around 3,000 US technical staff to begin upgrading Turkish military bases in preparation for a US attack on neighbouring Iraq, writes Nicholas Birch, in Istanbul
The vote - which was 308 to 193 - represents a major departure from Turkey's calls for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis, and is a significant step towards Turkish participation in a US-led war. But it is unlikely to satisfy Washington.
The US Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney, reportedly rang the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Abdullah Gul, on Tuesday to urge him "to push the decision permitting US troop deployment through parliament as well". Washington wants to deploy around 40,000 ground troops in Turkey to open up a northern front against Baghdad.
But Mr Gul told him the decision would have to wait until February 18th, when parliament returns from a 10-day religious holiday.
"We still believe peace can be achieved," Mr Gul told reporters on Wednesday. "The reason we have not combined these two measures is to give peace a chance."
A long-term ally of the US, Turkey is torn between helping Washington and preserving its traditionally good relations with President Saddam Hussein's regime.
But Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, Mr Talib El Dileyimi, yesterday warned that helping Washington amounted to joining a war.
"Countries that participate in that way should know that they commit a great crime, because Iraq has never shown them enmity or done them damage," he said.
Fearing possible Iraqi missile attacks if war breaks out, Turkey has repeatedly asked other NATO member states to provide it with AWACS early warning planes and Patriot missiles.
Following the parliamentary session, Mr Gul made repeated assurances that Turkey was only looking to help its Washington allies.
"Turkey is not going to war," he said. "The Turkish army will not fight." But on Wednesday he admitted to Turkish journalists in Ankara that, if US troops moved into Kurdish-held northern Iraq to open a second front against Baghdad, the Turkish army would also be present. Though he declined to be more specific, sources close to the government suggest that Turkish troops could number as many as 120,000.
"Obviously Turkish troops will not be able to avoid conflict altogether", a retired general, Mr Necati Ozgen, told CNN-Turk TV yesterday. "But their role there will be to protect refugees and prevent the region collapsing into chaos." The Turkish establishment fears war could spark an Iraqi Kurdish independence bid, raising tensions in its own majority Kurdish south-east.
For ordinary Turks impoverished by apparently endless recession, though, the possible economic consequences of war weigh far more heavily.
With a huge majority in parliament, Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) had little difficulty passing yesterday's motion. But the result belied strong opposition within the party. After voting, one AKP deputy announced his resignation. Thirty more avoided the debate by leaving early on pilgrimage to Mecca.
"The US has seriously underestimated the extent of Turkish opposition to war," says Mr Bulent Aliriza, director of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
"This fundamental disagreement over the need for war and regime change in Iraq has revealed the limits of the US-Turkish strategic relationship, so strong during the Cold War."