Every nation for itself
Faced with impending war across the border, Turkey has no choice but to align itself with the US, writes Gareth Jenkins from Istanbul
Last Thursday the Turkish parliament took the first step towards formally committing itself to supporting an expected war on Iraq, by voting to allow United States military personnel to upgrade Turkish bases for use in an attack. The decision followed the failure of a secret meeting on 3 February, in which Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul tried to persuade Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Taha Yasin Ramadan that Iraq had to take immediate action to appease the international community and avoid a war.
The decision to allow US engineers to upgrade bases in Turkey was taken during a closed session of the Turkish parliament, as lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) shied away from being seen to be publicly endorsing a US-led war against Iraq. Opinion polls suggest that over 90 per cent of Turks oppose Washington's plans for a military campaign. Nevertheless, the Turkish government insists that it has no other choice but to support the US.
"Faced with the increasing possibility of a war next to us, we are just taking measures to protect our national interests," explained JDP chairman Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
But the government has delayed taking more sensitive decisions on allowing US troops onto Turkish soil and sending Turkish troops abroad until after the end of the Eid Al-Adha religious holiday. A final vote is not expected until 18 February, although privately government officials admit that the result is a foregone conclusion. "There would be no point in going to all this trouble to pass a resolution to allow the US to upgrade bases if we then turned around and refused to allow them to use the bases," said one source.
Around 3,000 US military engineers are due to arrive in Turkey shortly to begin work on the bases. The US is expected to use airbases at Diyarbakir, Batman and Incirlik, both to launch air strikes against Iraq and also as transit points for the transportation of around 40,000 ground troops into northern Iraq. Although the main thrust of the US attack is expected to be from the Persian Gulf region, Turkey will provide the US with a second front. The US is also expected to use the Turkish eastern Mediterranean port of Mersin. The Turkish government insists that the US troops will only be allowed to transit the country on their way to northern Iraq, rather than being actually stationed on Turkish soil.
The Turkish government also remains adamant that Turkish troops will not fight against Iraq, but will be deployed in the north of the country to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish state and protect Iraq's Turkoman minority, with whom Turks claim ethnic ties.
"The decision taken by the Turkish parliament is not a declaration of war," Gul told the state-owned TRT channel on Saturday night. "The decision was taken to prevent the war from harming our interests. A war against Iraq will not be Turkey's war. But we give great importance to the territorial integrity of Iraq and we have historical and cultural ties with the people there."
However, the US has already indicated that it is opposed to Turkey acting independently in northern Iraq and insists that any troops deployed across the border should come under the command of the US-led coalition. Turkey already has 5,000 soldiers based permanently in northern Iraq and is believed to be planning to deploy up to 25,000 more in the event of hostilities. Turkish officials insist that, in addition to suppressing any Kurdish political aspirations, the troops would also be used to control any mass movement of refugees fleeing towards the Turkish border. Yet Turkish nationalists have made no secret of their desire to establish a de facto Turkish protectorate in northern Iraq that would control the oil-rich provinces of Mosul and Kirkuk.
The vote in parliament to allow the upgrading of bases drew an angry response from Talib Abid Saleh Al-Dileymi, the Iraqi ambassador to Turkey. "Countries that participate in that way should know that they commit a great crime and will see that they have made a strategic mistake because Iraq has never shown them enmity or done them damage," he said. "Whatever the help is, it does not matter. This means joining the war."
But Turkish officials still maintain that Ankara has done everything possible to try to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis. "As a country, our conscience is clear," Gul said last week.
Gul also confirmed Turkish media reports that he held secret negotiations with Taha Yasin Ramadan on 3 February, sending his personal plane to Baghdad to collect the Iraqi deputy prime minister, and then meeting with him for three hours at a secret location just outside Ankara. Gul declined to give details of the substance of the talks, merely commenting that they were designed to try to find a way out of the current crisis. But sources close to Gul said that the failure of the talks to produce any results had been one of the factors behind the government's decision to push ahead with the parliamentary vote on the bases.
"We didn't receive any indication that the Iraqis were prepared to do anything which could appease the international community and prevent a war," said one source. "War is now inevitable and that means that we have to support the US and send our forces into northern Iraq."
