[A-List] Turkey Consents to Help

["Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

New York Times

Powell Patches Things Up, as Turkey Consents to Help
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN


BELGRADE, Serbia, April 2 ? Yielding to pressure from the United
States, Turkey agreed today to increase its cooperation with the
American military campaign in Iraq by permitting use of its
territory for the overland supply of food, water, fuel and other
nonlethal necessities to American armed forces operating in
northern Iraq, not far from the Turkish border.

In another step deemed helpful to the war effort, Turkey also
agreed formally to open its airfields to American military planes
in distress or for the evacuation of wounded American service
personnel. Turkey has extended such help occasionally since the
war began two weeks ago, but the new accord will make it more
routine, American officials said.

The accord on Turkey's enhanced role was announced in Ankara by
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul after meetings to repair the political damage caused by the
Turkish parliament's rebuff to an American request last month to
use Turkey as a base for the invasion of Iraq.

Since the new agreement does not involve shipment of arms, Mr.
Gul said it would not require approval by the Turkish parliament.

"We have solved all the outstanding issues with respect to
providing supplies through Turkey to those units that are doing
such a wonderful job in northern Iraq," Mr. Powell said. American
officials added that the government's action would help in
securing Congressional approval of $1 billion in aid for Turkey,
and that the food, fuel and other supplies could be sent very
soon on Turkish trucks.

Turkish leaders were reported to be pleased this evening with Mr.
Powell's visit.

Aides to Mr. Powell said the agreement would help expand American
military operations in northern Iraq, which includes only the
173rd Airborne Brigade and some small Special Forces units sent
instead of the Fourth Infantry Division. After it was not allowed
to enter Iraq through Turkey, the Fourth Division was rerouted to
southern Iraq by air and sea.

Officials in Ankara said the military cooperation Turkey promised
today was quite limited, but that it was as much as the Turkish
government could do, given strong public antipathy toward the
war.

In a separate but important part of the agreement, Mr. Powell
said the United States and Turkey would establish a monitoring
group to watch northern Iraq to make sure no conditions arose
that might compel Turkey to send its troops across the border
into Iraq.

Mr. Powell said there was no reason for Turkey to intervene. He
fears that such a move would inflame the Kurdish-controlled
region in northern Iraq. The Ankara government fears that
northern Iraq could become a base for Kurdish secessionists
within Turkey or that a war could flood Turkey with refugees.

Turkish officials praised the accord on the monitoring group but
said it did not serve as a definitive roadblock to Turkish
intervention in Iraq.

Mr. Powell did not come in contact with a few small protest
groups that demonstrated against his visit today. But just before
he left, he got into an angry exchange with a national television
interviewer who interrupted his defense of the war several times,
and, running past the agreed-upon time limit for the interview,
interjected antiwar comments and pleaded with the secretary to
stop the war. Mr. Powell, clearly irate, ripped off his
microphone and left the studio for the airport without
responding.

Mr. Powell flew on to Belgrade for talks with the new prime
minister of Serbia, Zoran Zivkovic, who took over the job after
the assassination last month of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
The irony of Mr. Powell's visit, not lost on anyone in his
entourage, was that hours after telling Turkish audiences of his
hope that one day soon a war-ravaged Iraq would become a
democracy reconstructed by the United States, the secretary found
himself in a downtown still partly in ruins from the American
bombs that landed there in 1999.

On Thursday, Mr. Powell is to meet in Brussels with foreign
ministers of Russia and member countries of NATO and the European
Union.

Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/03/international/worldspecial/03TU
RK.html