POLITICS-TURKEY: A Little Too Close to War

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Hilmi Toros

FETHIYE, Turkey, Feb 10 2003 (IPS) - People in the fish market in this bustling Mediterranean town far closer to the Iraqi border than cosmopolitan Istanbul sound angry both with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and U.S. President George Bush.

They seem resigned to a war they do not want. And they see it as a war provoked by Saddam Hussein and waged by Bush. But more than Saddam Hussein or Bush, they are thinking of themselves.

"We went through this in the Gulf War (in 1991)," says fisherman Ali Ceylan. "Why do we have to go through it again?" The country lost billions of dollars in that war, he says. Now again he fears loss of tourism revenue from a war not of Turkey’s making.

Fethiye lives off tourism, but warlike developments are already seen as frightening tourists away. The town is quiet beneath the winter sun and its snow-capped mountains. But beneath the apparent calm, it is talking about how to cope with a war, not how war can be avoided.

War clouds are hanging over the holiday season. The start of the second half of the soccer season has been dampened by warnings that football fixtures may have to be rescheduled, and matches close to the Iraqi border called off.

But some in Fethiye are also asking what had been considered unimaginable recently: what is there to lose from a disarmed Iraq?

"Iraq’s armament effort has reached a worrisome stage especially from Turkey’s standpoint," says columnist Mehmet Ali Birant. "At some point Saddam attained the capacity to hurt Turkey. Turkey has brave soldiers. But there is no way we could withstand his chemical and nuclear weapons."

That is in line with the official position. But a public opinion poll Monday indicates that 93 per cent of people oppose a war. Bush is portrayed as a warmonger in daily demonstrations.

A decision to join the war was taken in the face of the strong anti-war feeling sweeping the country. The anti-war push is led by a mishmash of labour and management groups otherwise at odds with one another, non-governmental organisations, human rights groups and European anti-war activists making their way into the country, though some have been blocked at the borders.

Authors, academics and artists sign anti-war petitions daily. A businessman in the southern city Mersin has hired a plane to fly a banner against the war.

Television presents scenes of tearful farewell to thousands of soldiers boarding trains to the southeast bordering Iraq, of military hardware headed the same way.

The Turkish parliament has voted to join a U.S.-led military strike against Iraq, but it still holds the hope that there will be no war.

The parliament approved use of Turkish air, land and sea bases for the planned military action against Saddam Hussein. A vote on permitting an estimated 40,000 U.S. troops to be stationed in Turkey has been put off until the end of the holidays February 18. The Turkish parliament will also vote then on deployment of its own troops against Iraq.

Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said in a speech broadcast nationally after the first vote that while striving for a peaceful settlement, Turkey must join an attack on Iraq to protect its interests in a post-war settlement.

Turkey wants to prevent the emergence of a strong Kurdish entity, if not an independent homeland for them, in the unsettled north of Iraq. Turkey fears such a development may lead to similar attempts by its own 12 million Kurds in a population of 65 million. Battles over Kurd rights have claimed more than 30,000 lives. Turks care little about Saddam Hussein as long as their own country does not get chopped up.

Turkish troops have been operating inside Iraq for many months to hunt anti-Turkish Kurdish guerrillas. In the event of war Turkey hopes to match U.S. troops in strength in a northern front against Iraq, and demand joint command. That would place the Turkish military in a position to contain any Kurdish uprising.

Iraqi Kurds are reported to be demanding only minimal role for the Turkish military as a price for supporting the U.S. against Saddam Hussein.