Ankara has finally allowed US troops on its soil but at what price? Gareth Jenkins reports from Istanbul The Turkish Cabinet finally signed a draft resolution allowing US troops onto Turkish soil prior to their deployment into northern Iraq to open a second front in the expected US military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. But it warned that the resolution would not be submitted for approval by the Turkish Parliament until an agreement had been reached with the US on the financial aid package Washington will provide to Turkey in return for its support. Ankara and Washington have been locked in negotiations over Turkish support for a US-led operation against Iraq since the summer of last year. In recent weeks, Washington has become increasingly frustrated by Ankara's refusal to give a clear commitment. In early February, the US government thought that it had secured an agreement for a resolution to go before parliament allowing US troops to transit Turkey, only for the Turkish government to backtrack in the face of opposition both from within its own ranks and from the Turkish public. Opinion polls suggest that over 94 per cent of Turks are opposed to a US-led military campaign against Iraq. Monday's Cabinet meeting lasted over six hours. Briefing journalists afterwards, government Spokesman Abdullah Sener admitted that the majority of ministers had initially refused to sign the resolution and only relented when Prime Minister Abdullah Gul assured them that the final decision would rest with parliament and that they were merely being asked to approve the wording of the resolution on which the MPs would vote. Turkish officials privately admit they have always known that in the end they would have to agree to allow US troops onto their soil. "America is too important an ally for us to say no," explained one official. "And at the moment our economy needs the support of the IMF, which we are not going to get if we upset the US." But Turkey has nevertheless delayed granting approval for US forces to be deployed through Turkish territory in the hope of squeezing as much money as possible out of the US. On Monday, US officials said that their final offer was $6 billion in grants and around $10 billion in loan guarantees. But Turkey continued to hold out, insisting that the money should be available as a bridging loan so that it could be transferred immediately rather than being subjected to the lengthy, and uncertain, process of congressional approval. In addition to securing a substantial payment for its support, Turkey is also insisting that it should be able to deploy up to 40,000 of its own troops into northern Iraq at the same time as US forces. However, it insists that Turkish troops will not fight alongside the Americans as they push south towards Baghdad but will remain in northern Iraq to control any flood of refugees towards the Turkish border similar to the exodus of around half a million Iraqi Kurds in 1991. Turkey already has a brigade of 5,000 troops stationed on an almost permanent basis in northern Iraq, ostensibly to gather intelligence on militants of the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK), formerly the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). KADEK has around 5,000 militants under arms in camps along the mountainous Iraqi- Turkish border and recently threatened to abandon a three-year-old unilateral cease-fire in its armed campaign for greater cultural rights for Turkey's 12 million to 15 million Kurds. The prospect of a brigade of Turkish troops being reinforced by another 35,000 soldiers, complete with artillery and armour, has alarmed the two main Kurdish factions which have controlled northern Iraq since 1991, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Both the KDP and the PUK argue that even if refugees do flee towards the Turkish border for fear of a chemical or biological attack by Saddam Hussein, they can handle the situation themselves and that 40,000 Turkish troops are far more than would be required by any humanitarian operation. Privately, Turkish officials admit that the primary purpose of sending so many soldiers into northern Iraq would not be to help refugees but to prevent any attempt by the Iraqi Kurds to establish a political entity in the north, either as a semi-autonomous region or even a fully-fledged independent Kurdish state. But the Iraqi Kurds fear that the Turkish troops would not only be used to crush their political ambitions but to establish a de facto Turkish protectorate in northern Iraq. They insist that they will resist any substantial increase in the Turkish military presence, raising the possibility of a guerrilla war between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds behind the US troops advancing towards Baghdad. "We will oppose any Turkish military intervention. This is our decision," said KDP Spokesman Hoshyar Zebari. "Nobody should think we are bluffing on this issue. Any intervention, under whatever pretext, will lead to clashes."
