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POLITICS-IRAQ: Turkey Pushes for its Own Gains
By Hilmi Toros
ISTANBUL, Feb 24 (IPS) - Turkey is beginning to fall in line with U.S. war plans in Iraq after a week of wavering, but for its own reasons.
The U.S. and its ”strategic partner” had been engaged last week in public haggling of an order rarely seen over a deal that was thought to have been done long back.
A government motion to authorise U.S. troops on Turkish soil is likely to be brought before Parliament this week as the two countries edged closer to agreement Sunday.
Thousands of U.S. troops are waiting on ships anchored in stormy seas near the Turkish coast. An unlikely Turkish 'no' would mean they would have to go back through the Suez Canal to areas closer to southern Iraq.
But preparations are under way for a landing, and for the troops to open up a northern front against Iraq. Hundreds of U.S. military personnel are openly at work in Turkey following an approval by the Turkish parliament earlier to ”upgrade” U.S. sea and land bases.
U.S. cargo planes have been flying into Diyarbakir airport near the Iraq border at night. TV cameras picked up their flights Sunday.
Turkey has already sent thousands of troops to its southeast border in war preparations on a scale not seen in decades. The only Muslim member of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) now governed by a party with Islamic roots, and the only alliance member bordering Iraq is heading for a war that 97 per cent of its people oppose.
The Turkish government is not driven by the oppressive ways of the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, or by a need to see a regime change. Turkey is looking at the unsettled state of northern Iraq, its oil wealth - and at money.
The Turkish government has been condemned both at home and abroad over the price it wants to help launch a war that the U.S. wants and Turkey does not. The government says Turkey lost up to 100 billion dollars in the last Gulf War. It has asked now for a written guarantee of six billion dollars of grants and up to 30 billion dollars in loans.
Critics have called Turkey's demands ”blackmail”, ”bazaar politics” and even ”extortion”. Turkish officials defend the demands.
Turkish leaders grant the 'money is not everything' argument but the political reasons they raise are all their own. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of the ruling Justice and Development Party says an estimated two million ”Turkmens” of Turkish origin living in northern Iraq must have a say in an area dominated by Kurds and Arabs. Turkey wants protection for the Turkmens agreed ahead of participation in a war, according to government sources.
A key concern is the emergence of a strong Kurdish entity in the event of an Iraqi meltdown. Turkish leaders are telling the U.S. they need to avoid the emergence of an independent Kurdistan or of a formal state for Kurds within a loose central government. Such a state can make a grab for the Kirkuk and Mosul oilfields in northern Iraq, Turkish officials say.
Turkey fears also that its own Kurdish population - some 20 per cent in a population of 68 million - may press for a similar status if such a development takes place in Iraq. Peace has returned only over the past four years after a Kurdish insurgency that left about 35,000 dead.
Kurdish insurgents who have been lying low after the capture of their leader Abdullah Ocalan, have formally threatened to take up arms again. Kurd leaders in Iraq are pressing against any deep incursion by the Turkish army into Kurdish populated areas.
On the other hand, Turkey is asking for weapons supplied to Iraqi Kurds to be returned, or at least kept from Turkish Kurd rebels based in northern Iraqi mountains.
Turk leaders say that if Turkey shies away from the war on Iraq, it would have no say in what happens to war material the U.S. would supply to Iraqi Kurds against the Saddam regime. Turk leaders realise also that after being snubbed over their move for early EU (European Union) membership, they risk being frozen out by the U.S. if they do not go along with the war.
(END)
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