[A-List] Turkey Negotiates Role in War

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This comes to A-List by way of my fellow PEN-Ler Ian Murray who
forwarded it to me. Thanks Ian.

Sabri

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Turkey Negotiates Role in War
Talks With U.S. Could Put More Troops in Northern Iraq

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, October 22, 2002

ANKARA, Turkey -- The United States and Turkey are locked in
strenuous negotiations over what role Turkey would play in a war
with neighboring Iraq, a conflict that could lead Turkey to
inject thousands of additional troops into the volatile Kurdish
region of northern Iraq.

Turkey already maintains 2,000 to 5,000 troops in northern Iraq,
assigned, in conjunction with Kurdish militias that control the
area, to chase remnants of the Kurdish Workers' Party guerrilla
force, which seeks autonomy for Turkey's large Kurdish minority.

But Washington may recruit Turkey to police the flow of refugees
and guard prisoners of war in case of a conflict with Iraq, whose
northern border abuts southeastern Turkey for about 200 miles and
would be a logical escape route for defeated Iraqis. Because the
Turks want to keep any fleeing Iraqis on the Iraqi side of the
border, the plan would require Turkey to increase its military
presence in Iraq by thousands of troops, Western diplomats and
Turkish officials say.

Such an arrangement is far from being finalized. Moreover, a
generally sour outlook here about possible repercussions from the
overthrow of President Saddam Hussein is complicating the
Turkish-U.S. talks.

Turkey wants to exact a financial reward from any such
cooperation. Its economy is in recession, and Turkish officials
say that the country would suffer further from a war and its
aftermath. Turkey is looking for $4 billion to $6 billion in aid,
news reports here say, as well as trade concessions from the
United States.

The Turks are also suspicious of the motives of Washington's main
helpmates in Iraq, the Kurds in the north. Turkey wants
guarantees that the Iraqi Kurds will not establish an independent
state, or even achieve a degree of autonomy that could awaken the
crushed separatist dreams of Turkey's Kurdish minority.

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, visited
Ankara yesterday for talks with top Turkish military officials on
a Turkish ground role in any war with Iraq, as well as use of the
big Incirlik Air Base in southeastern Turkey for bomb runs over
Iraq.

Franks and Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, the supreme allied commander
in Europe, met with Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, the Turkish chief of staff,
who is scheduled to visit Washington in two weeks. The military
dominates Turkey's policymaking body, the National Security
Council, and will make the final decision on Turkey's stand. The
Americans met for three hours with Turkish officers and discussed
"just about everything," a U.S. official said.

Turkish officials have warned that Kurdish efforts to expand the
autonomous zone in the north -- now maintained under an umbrella
of U.S. and British air patrols -- could prompt Turkey to grab
territory for itself. Over the weekend, Turkish Foreign Minister
Sukru Sina Gurel warned the Iraqi Kurds "to heed our warnings"
against setting up a state.

"Turkish relations with the Kurds ride on thin ice," said a
Western diplomat. "It's a big issue."

Western diplomats and Turkish officials say there will be no
definitive decision on Turkey's role in Iraq until the U.N.
Security Council votes on a resolution designed, from
Washington's point of view, to give the United States the
authority to use military force. A Turkish decision may also
await the results of Nov. 3 parliamentary elections in Turkey, in
which Iraq has emerged as a major issue, Western diplomats say.

For Turks, the idea of ending Hussein's rule in Baghdad is an
unwelcome distraction from their campaign to join the European
Union. In the Turkish view, the country has only recently emerged
from a string of knotty regional problems that slowed its
progress toward that goal.

One was the battle with Kurdish nationalists that gave Turkey a
reputation as a human rights abuser. In the 1990s, conflict in
the Balkans provided Turkey with waves of refugees. And Turkish
officials argue that the country lost billions of dollars in
tourist revenue and trade with Iraq during and after the 1991
Persian Gulf War.

With the Balkans quiescent and Iraq stable, though hemmed in by
economic sanctions, Turkey felt it was free to turn its full
attention to the EU. With U.S. support, Ankara is trying to
persuade the EU to set a date for talks that it hopes would lead
to membership. Turkish officials say they want to look west
toward prosperity, not south toward conflict.

"We need to keep disruptions away from Turkey," a senior Turkish
official said in a recent interview.

"We have gotten along with all kinds of Iraqi regimes," added a
senior Foreign Ministry official. "Many would agree that Saddam
is not an asset, but we are concerned about a lot of
consequences."

"In the Turkish mind," said a U.S. diplomat, "we are creating a
mess for Turkey."

With war looming, the Iraqi Kurds have fashioned a proposed
constitution for expanded autonomy in a new, federalized Iraq.
The Kurdish drive is widely regarded here as a campaign for
independence. As a result, war and Kurdish autonomy have become
dominant issues in the campaign for parliamentary elections.

Eighteen parties are vying for seats, and politicians with low
ratings in opinion polls, notably Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit,
are trying to make hay out of Turkish insecurities. "The
situation in northern Iraq has gotten out of hand," Ecevit warned
recently.

Northern Iraq is under the control of two militia groups -- the
Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Their enclaves are under the protection of a "no-fly" zone
patrolled by U.S. and British warplanes. The overflights bar the
Iraqi air force from the area.

Turkey is a partner in the no-fly zone; the U.S. and British
planes take off from Incirlik. In addition, the two militia
groups help Turkey keep guerrilla remnants of the Kurdish
Workers' Party pinned down in the mountains of northern Iraq.

"Those [Iraqi Kurdish] communities' welfare and security have
until now been under Turkey's safeguard. If they want to continue
like this, then they need to behave accordingly," Gurel, the
foreign minister, said over the weekend. "Our presence in north
Iraq will continue."

The Bush administration has asserted that there are no plans to
split up Iraq. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell recently
welcomed the convening of a Kurdish regional parliament as a step
toward a "democratic, pluralistic and united Iraq" with the
country's "territorial integrity intact."

While seeking Kurdish help against Hussein's government and
military, U.S. officials oppose the Kurds' desire to make their
regional capital in Kirkuk, the main city in an oil-rich zone of
northern Iraq.

The Kirkuk issue in particular has raised Turkish qualms. Turkish
officials and newspapers argue that the town is traditionally
Turkish and is populated largely by the Iraqi Turkmen minority,
an ethnic group that has been dispersed over the years by
successive Iraqi governments. A senior Turkish official put the
total Iraqi Turkmen population at 2.5 million. The Kurds say they
number about 700,000.

Northern Iraq is already a cluttered arena of potentially hostile
forces, Western diplomats say. In addition to the Turkish troops
stationed in the northernmost reaches, the two militia groups
boast a combined force of 50,000 men armed with rifles and
antitank weapons.

Hussein maintains divisions of his elite Republican Guard in
Mosul and Kirkuk. Baghdad also has established regular forces
along the rest of a curved line separating Kurdish autonomous
zones from the rest of Iraq. Recent visitors to the area observed
construction of earthworks to shelter troops, tanks and
artillery.

In the eastern end of the Kurdish zone, along the border with
Iran, about 400 Islamic fundamentalist fighters, including some
Arab fugitives from al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan,
are holed up in the mountains. Turkish and Western officials say
that group, Ansar al-Islam, is backed by Iran, one of the latest
in a series of efforts by Iran to make its presence felt in Iraq.

Article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61646-2002Oct21.ht
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