IRAQ: No Turks Is Good News

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peyman Pejman

BAGHDAD, Oct 24 2003 (IPS) - After intense opposition from several parties, Iraqis say they are pleased with signs that Turkey may decide not to send troops to Iraq after all.

The Bush administration had announced it wants Turkey to send as many as 10,000 troops to help expand the U.S.-dominated coalition forces, and help deflect the cost of the military operations.

The Turkish government had at first given repeated assurances to visiting Iraqi officials that it would not send troops, then changed its mind after securing an 8 billion dollar loan from Washington.

Both Ankara and Washington said Turkey’s change of heart was not tied to the loan guarantee.

After a suicide bomber slammed a car packed with explosives into the Turkish embassy in Baghdad earlier this month, Ankara said it would still send troops. Last week, however, Ankara said it would not send troops to Iraq if people here do not want them.

Turkey is sensitive to Iraqi views. While Turkey is not expected to contribute any money to Iraq’s reconstruction during the Madrid conference, Turkish companies are widely expected to participate in trade links with Iraq.

”We are happy the Turkish government has decided (not to send troops),” Samer Hussein, a shopkeeper in Baghdad said this week. ”We don’t want them. We never did. We don’t want any foreign troops.”

Washington’s invitation to Turkish troops stirred tension between the U.S.- appointed governing council and U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer, Iraqi officials say.

Iraqi officials say they oppose the presence of Turkish troops because of the precedence it will set and because of the sensitive relations between Iraq and Turkey.

”We are very concerned about this primarily for two reasons,” says Adel Murad, spokesman for Jalal Talebani, a member of the Iraqi governing council and head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. This is one of the two main Kurdish groups in Iraq.

”First, if Turkey is allowed to send troops, many Shia groups might feel threatened and will probably ask Iran to send in troops to protect the Shias,” he says. ”Once we start down that road, there will be no end to the presence of foreign troops here on behalf of one group or another.”

Another concern here is that many Iraqis believe Turkish forces can be a destabilising factor, instead of bringing more stability to the country.

Turkey has had mixed relations with the Kurds. While it has supported various Iraqi Kurdish factions at one time or another, it has also fought bloody battles against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a separatist Turkey-based Kurdish group.

There are also an unaccounted number of Turkomans, Iraqis of Turkish origin based mostly in Kirkuk north of Baghdad. They have at times had tense relations with Iraqi Kurdish groups.

”The route that the Americans want to use to bring the Turkish forces to Fallujah passes through Kirkuk,” says Murad. ”That could create a problem between some Kurds and Turkomans. They are our brothers. We have been living together for centuries. We don’t need the trouble.”

But there is more to the problem than the route the Turkish troops would take for deployment, or even centuries-old disputes that might erupt one more time. Many Iraqis say they are concerned over the independence of the governing council from Bremer.

”For months Bremer and the Americans have been telling us how much they care about the independence of the governing council,” says a member of the council who asked not to be identified. ”And then they go and do something massively important like inviting foreign troops to our country without consulting us.”

Some governing council members say the council itself should take some of the blame for allowing the troops issue to become so contentious.

”We knew there was a discussion about inviting the Turkish troops but Turkey had told us very emphatically that it would not participate,” says Murad. ”So we did not bring it up with Bremer because we saw no point affecting our relations with the Americans over an issue that we did not think would happen. When we heard Turkey had agreed (to send troops) we were shocked.”

As the discussion continues, both the governing council on one side and Bremer and his advisors on the other are evaluating what cards they have and how to play them, without affecting the relationship they have tried to build since the council was established in July.

”Ultimately, we have to realise that we are here because of the Americans,” says Murad. ”Neither the Kurds, nor the Shias, nor the Sunnis could have toppled Saddam. So we have to be very mindful of what we owe them.”