Turkey said yesterday it was determined to dispatch tanks and troops deep into northern Iraq, despite irate protests from Britain and the US and the threat of retaliation from Kurdish forces in the region.
The deputy prime minister, Mehmet Ali Sahin, announced Ankara’s intention to flex its military muscle as parliament approved a government motion authorising troops to be sent abroad.
The long-awaited resolution also gave US warplanes the right to use Turkish airspace on missions to Iraq, although the fighter jets will not be able to refuel on Turkish soil or use the sprawling US Incirlik airbase – a decision which strained relations with Washington.
After the vote, the US ruled out reviving a economic aid package for Turkey. ”There had been discussion of a package of aid for Turkey that was contingent on Turkey’s… total cooperation. That did not develop,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
The US had offered $6-billion in direct aid and up to $24-billion in US-backed loans if Turkey allowed 62 000 troops into the country.
Sahin said the government was entitled to order the intervention in northern Iraq ”once parliament approves the motion”. He said: ”Our soldiers will cross the border only for humanitarian purposes. If there is a refugee wave towards our frontier, our plan is to stop them on the other side and accommodate them in humanitarian support centres.”
Western diplomats not only questioned Ankara’s legal right to cross the border but openly doubted the sincerity of its motives. Unlike the first Gulf war, when up to 500 000 hungry and impoverished Iraqi refugees fled across the border, a fraction of that number is expected this time.
In recent weeks Turkey has amassed thousands of heavily armed troops along the 205-mile frontier.
Although Turkish officials have persistently argued that any intervention would be to provide humanitarian aid, it is also viewed as a pretext to forestall a Kurdish rush for Iraqi oil fields in areas outside the autonomous region.
Ankara fears that should Iraqi Kurds seize control of the wells it would lend economic might to their dream of winning independence, although all main Kurdish parties have denied that they want either.
Iraqi Kurdish groups, meeting in Ankara, said that while local forces would resist the move with ”all their might”, Turkey’s powerful military had presented it ”as a fact of life that we will have to accept”.
”We have told them that Turkish military intervention is not warranted,” said Barham Salih, prime minister in the part of northern Iraq controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). ”It can only complicate the transition towards a democratic federal Iraq.”
A senior US official said Washington had implored its longtime Nato ally not to take the step, saying it would face the most serious consequences. ”We hope they see sense.”
Any aspirations Turkey might have of joining the EU would be scuppered if it unilaterally went ahead with the move, other sources said.
Even worse, the deployment raised the alarming spectre of a stand-off between Turkish and American troops. That, say analysts, could detract from efforts to topple the Baghdad regime.
While such a move was indicative of Turkey’s ”bunker mentality”, diplomats said they feared Turkey’s general staff was determined to use the US-led attack on Iraq as the best chance yet to deal with its own ”Kurdish problem”.
A separatist guerrilla war by Kurds in the south was quashed several years ago but Turkish officials still have vivid memories of Kurdish militants unleashing their campaign after the first Gulf war. – Guardian Unlimited Â