Turkey says no to US led Iraq war

"We are not entering a war. The Turkish armed forces will not be fighting," Gul told a press conference. "We are still working for peace. We still want to give peace a chance," he said. Turkey, he added, nevertheless had to take precautions ahead of a possible war. The Prime Minister acknowledged that his government was planning to submit other motions on military decisions to Parliament later this month. Gul told a group of select journalists on Wednesday that the government would ask Parliament on February 18 to allow the deployment of US soldiers in Turkey and the dispatch of Turkish troops to northern Iraq. Turkey already has several thousand soldiers in mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, which Ankara fears could secede if the Baghdad regime is toppled.
The birth of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq could rekindle a separatist rebellion by Turkey’s own Kurds.