Turkish pledge of troops stirs
While criticism for Turkish decision to send troops to Iraq has been coming from various directions, the Turkish army did not think twice. Gareth Jenkins reports from Ankara
Click to view caption |
A Turkish university student protesting the likely deployment to Iraq is arrested during a demonstration on Monday. The war in Iraq is highly unpopular in Turkey
|
Last week, Turkey was facing mounting criticism of its decision in principle to send troops to Iraq. Several Muslim states added their voices to opposition expressed in the Iraqi Interim Governing Council and growing among the Turkish public. Although the civilian government appeared unprepared for the possible consequences of a Turkish deployment to Iraq, the Turkish military remained adamant that this move is essential to safeguard Turkey's vital interests.
On 7 October the Turkish parliament voted by 358 to 183 to authorise the government to send troops to Iraq for a period of up to one year. The decision was greeted with dismay by most of the Turkish public, who remain overwhelmingly opposed both to Washington's war to oust Saddam Hussein and what is seen as the subsequent US occupation of Iraq.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) has subsequently sought to allay the public's fears by insisting that the 7 October vote does not commit Turkey to sending troops but merely empowers the government to do so if and when it negotiates suitable terms for their deployment with the US. However, Turkish and US military officials have already held preliminary discussions on the location, size and composition of a Turkish force. Initial indications are that Turkey will send around 10,000 soldiers to provide security and oversee the distribution of humanitarian aid in the area under their control.
"If Turkey decides to go, it would go to Iraq not to suppress its people, but to help meet their needs," said Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
But Iraqi Kurds have already warned that any deployment to, or passage of Turkish troops through, the predominantly Kurdish north of the country will be met with armed resistance. Many fear that Turkey's real aim is to establish a de facto protectorate, which would give Ankara control of the north's oil fields and crush Kurdish dreams of autonomy or even independence.
Nor is the only opposition coming from the Iraqi Kurds. With the exception of Iraq's small Turkish-speaking Turkoman minority, virtually all of the various factions in the country have strong reservations about a Turkish deployment.
On Saturday a war of words broke out between the Turkish and Iraqi delegations on the sidelines of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in Malaysia.
"We don't like to have any peace-keeping troops from neighbouring countries because it might cause problems inside Iraq," said Riyadh Al-Fadhil, the head of the Iraqi delegation to the summit.
The Turkish semi-official Anatolia news agency quoted Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, as implicitly opposing the Turkish deployment by pointing out that the end of the occupation of Iraq meant decreasing, not increasing, the number of foreign troops in the country.
While last week Malaysian Foreign Minister Syeed Hamid Albar bluntly stated: "You cannot have peace- keeping by countries who are Muslim, led by the Americans and the coalition forces. It must be done under the umbrella of the UN."
But with the US notoriously reluctant to relinquish any control over what it terms its "war against terrorism", the chances of the UN assuming responsibility for peace- keeping in Iraq still appear remote. Given that few countries, particularly from the Muslim world, are prepared to commit troops without a UN mandate, the US is left with little choice in terms of spreading the burden of policing post-Saddam Iraq. Privately, some US diplomatic sources in Turkey question whether Turkish troops will ever be deployed in Iraq. They argue that, for the US, the propaganda benefits of a Muslim country making a commitment to sending troops to Iraq outweigh the military advantages of them actually being deployed, particularly if they were to be unpopular with the local population. Meanwhile, the Turkish government -- unlike the Turkish military -- does not appear prepared for its largely conscript army to suffer casualties.
"If we go in shoulder to shoulder with the Americans it could be more risky," JDP member of parliament, Turhan Comez, admitted in an interview with the Turkish daily Milliyet. "Our troops should be deployed in a sterilised region."
Yet, from a purely military perspective, the argument for having peace-keeping troops from a Muslim country requires that they should be deployed in areas where the population is resentful of the US, not where they are quiescent.
Unlike the civilian government, the Turkish military has made little attempt to hide the fact that it expects to suffer casualties if troops are eventually deployed to Iraq.
"We are going to lose men. There is no question about that," said a source close to the military. "That is why we want to do everything possible to minimise our losses. This means that we need to provide our soldiers with as much protection as possible, make sure that our supply lines are secure and also be responsible for humanitarian aid in the areas under our control. Of course, it will be a risky operation but we still need to have a presence there on the ground in Iraq. Only if we are there and involved in what is happening can we make sure that there are no developments that harm our national interests. We have already expressed our opposition to the creation of a Kurdish state. There is no secret about that."
