[A-List] Turkey: Bargaining for compensation

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fianacial Times

Anxious Turkey ponders both war and elections
By Leyla Boulton in Ankara and Guy Dinmore recently in Arbil

Published: October 21 2002 5:00

General Tommy Franks, commander of US forces in the Middle East,
will be hard-pressed to avoid internal politics today when he
visits Turkey to discuss possible US military action against
Iraq.

Campaigning for Turkey's general election on November 3 has
become embroiled in debate over Iraq.

Bulent Ecevit, the 77-year-old prime minister who is expected to
lose the elections, warned last week that Turkey was being
dragged into war against its wishes.

But his junior partner, the conservative Motherland party, backed
Turkish "participation" in a war on the grounds that it was
better for Ankara to be involved than to be left on the
sidelines.

For its part, the National Action party (MHP), the
ultra-nationalist government party, reiterated earlier threats to
invade the Kurdish-dominated enclave of northern Iraq to prevent
Kurds from establishing an independent state there.

Although Turkey views a mostly US operation as dangerous and
unnecessary, it is unlikely to deny Washington support -
including the use of Turkish airbases in south-east Turkey -
regardless of which party comes to power.

But it is also bargaining hard for economic compensation and
guarantees that the US will not countenance the establishment of
an independent Kurdish state.

Such issues are likely to come up as part of wider-ranging
discussions between General Franks' delegation and Turkey's
military leadership.

Early estimates of the cost to Turkey's fragile economy of a war
on Iraq range from $9bn (£5.8bn) to $150bn.

Some officials and the influential military also fear renewed
separatism among Turkish Kurds should Iraqi Kurds gain autonomy
in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

Iraqi Kurds, who say they make up about a quarter of the Iraqi
population, do not hide their desire for independence. But in
general, they concede this is not achievable in the near future.

Sami Abdul-Rahman, chief negotiator for the Kurdistan Democratic
party (KDP), says the joint demand of the main Kurdish factions
for a federal Iraq should not be a source of anxiety for other
Iraqi ethnic groups nor the country's neighbours.

"No responsible Kurdish group or party or individual is working
towards establishing a Kurdish state," he said.

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