Cold Turkey over Iraq
The US has begun to close bases in Turkey and abandon its plans to open a second front against Baghdad amid growing fears of a possible clash between US and Turkish forces in northern Iraq. Gareth Jenkins reports from Istanbul
On Sunday 23 March, the US closed down one of its logistics bases in Turkey amid growing tensions between Washington and Ankara over the refusal of the Turkish parliament to allow American troops to transit Turkey and the substantial Turkish military presence in northern Iraq.
The base in the town of Nusaybin was one of nine established by the US in southeastern Turkey following a decision on 6 February by the Turkish parliament to allow Washington to create the infrastructure to support the opening of a second front in its military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. However, on 1 March a parliamentary rebellion prevented the Turkish government from passing a motion that would have allowed US combat forces to transit Turkey on their way into northern Iraq. On Friday, with the war already underway, Turkey finally approved a motion allowing US planes to fly through Turkish airspace on their way to attack Iraq. But the previous refusal to allow US troops onto Turkish soil had already forced the US to abandon its plans for a second front and redeploy its forces. The US 4th Infantry Division, which the Pentagon had originally planned to deploy in northern Iraq, has been diverted to Kuwait to join the drive on Baghdad from the south. On the weekend a fleet of 12 US warships transited the Suez Canal as part of their deployment from the eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf.
Washington's fury at the Turkish parliament's about-face over the deployment of US troops has been compounded by Ankara's determination effectively to occupy a swathe of territory in northern Iraq. On Sunday President George Bush bluntly warned Turkey that it had no reason to deploy troops in northern Iraq amid conflicting reports about whether 1,000 Turkish commandos had crossed the border the previous evening. Turkey has had 5,000 troops stationed virtually permanently in northern Iraq since the mid-1990s. In the run-up to the beginning of war against Iraq, these troops were reinforced and distributed throughout a belt of Iraqi territory approximately 20 kilometres wide, running parallel to the Turkish border. Several thousand more troops have been moved to Turkey's border with Iraq, ready to cross at a few hours' notice.
Publicly, Turkish officials insist that the role of their military presence in northern Iraq is merely to control the movements of refugees towards the Turkish border and ensure that they are able to receive humanitarian supplies. On Monday there were reports that several thousand Iraqi Kurds had already begun moving into the mountains for fear of attacks by forces loyal to Saddam Hussein.
But privately officials admit that the main purpose of the Turkish military presence in northern Iraq is to curb Iraqi Kurdish political ambitions. Despite their protestations to the contrary, Ankara believes that the Iraqi Kurds are hoping to establish an autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. They are adamant that they will not allow the Kurds to establish any Kurdish political entity in the north unless it is counterbalanced by similar rights for Iraqi's substantially smaller Turcoman minority.
Not surprisingly, the Iraqi Kurds are vigorously opposed to the Turkish military presence and have vowed to fight if Turkey attempts to dictate the shape of post-Saddam Iraq.
Last week the US began to attack Islamist militant groups in northern Iraq, which control about 40 villages in the mountains close to the border with Iran. Most of the fighting on the ground was being carried out by Kurdish peshmerga fighters, backed by US special forces and US air power. If the US decides to launch an offensive south from northern Iraq towards Baghdad, the Turkish parliament's refusal to allow the transit of US ground troops means that Washington is likely to be heavily reliant on the peshmerga. As a result, it cannot afford to antagonise the Iraqi Kurds.
Last week US Secretary of State Colin Powell bluntly warned Turkey that there could be clashes between US and Turkish troops in northern Iraq unless Ankara changed its policy. But Turkish officials remain unmoved.
"What else can we do?" asked one official, "we can't allow half a million refugees to arrive at our border like they did in 1991. Nor could we ever permit the establishment of a Kurdish state."
US officials arrived in Ankara on Sunday to try to defuse the crisis. But, even if armed clashes between US and Turkish troops can be avoided, Ankara's relations with Washington are likely to remain at their lowest ebb for many years.
"It is no secret that we don't like this government because we think that they have an Islamist agenda," said a source close to the US military. "But even we wish they had not been so incompetent. We were ready to go into northern Iraq alongside the Americans and then they would have supported us. We were already having difficulties with the Europeans and the Arabs because we were seen to be supporting the war. Now, thanks to the decision not to allow the US troops in, we have infuriated the Americans as well. How is anybody ever going to trust Turkey again? Have you ever seen such a disaster?"
