Turkey’s parliament may vote again on GIs

The Turkish leaders are hoping to reverse last weekend’s rejection of a motion to allow 62,000 American troops to use Turkey as a launching pad for the northern front in a U.S.-led offensive against Iraq. The vote stunned Washington and Ankara alike, jeopardizing U.S. military plans for a second front against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s army and endangering Turkey’s hopes to influence the shaping of a postwar Iraq.
"Turkey, for its own security and for Iraq’s territorial integrity, will not remain an observer to the developments, and I believe in the coming days (Turkey) will decide on how it needs to intervene and which method it needs to use," Erdogan said Tuesday.
Erdogan, who is expected to become Turkey’s prime minister after legislative by-elections scheduled for Sunday, did not say when a new resolution might be submitted to parliament.
Ankara and Washington spent weeks negotiating the conditions for the troop deployment, which would have brought Turkey an economic package worth about $15 billion in cash and immediate loans to cushion the losses it would incur from a war on its border.
But the U.S. envoy to Turkey, Ambassador Robert Pearson, said that Turkey would lose the aid package if it refused to cooperate with the United States.
"Without the agreement, there is no financial package," Pearson told reporters after talks with Prime Minister Abdullah Gul in Ankara on Tuesday.
Turkey is likely to lose $25 billion to $30 billion if there is a war in Iraq, estimated Zafer Ali Yavan, the Ankara representative of the Association of Industrialists and Businessmen of Turkey.
"The financial package that comes with Turkey’s cooperation in the war would mitigate against financial losses," Yavan said, adding that after the war, Turkey might have an opportunity to reconstruct Iraq, which could bring it an estimated $60 billion.
If it is left without the economic package, he said, losses caused by the war in Iraq would inflict a huge setback upon Turkey’s economy, which is recovering from the worst economic crisis since World War II.
But analysts say Turkey stands to lose more than money if it fails to let American soldiers onto its military bases. It may lose the chance to have a say in the creation of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

KURDS, TURKOMANS
Turkey fears that Iraqi ethnic Kurds, who rule a semi-autonomous part of Iraq’s north, may try to create an independent state, sparking the nationalist aspirations of Turkey’s own 12 million Kurds. To prevent an independent Kurdish state — and to make sure Kurdish groups don’t seize the oil-rich Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul — Turkey had planned to send tens of thousands of its soldiers into northern Iraq alongside American troops.
"The oil of Kirkuk and Mosul is a common resource of all Iraqi people, and, just like the fate of Iraq, should not be decided upon by any one ethnic group, " said a Turkish Foreign Ministry official in Ankara, who spoke on condition that his name not be used. "Ensuring this is our priority."
A Turkish military presence in Iraq was also intended to ensure representation of Iraqi ethnic Turkomans in the postwar government. But Iraqi Kurds fiercely oppose the idea of Turks on their soil and angrily protested the prospect this week in the streets of Irbil.
Their concerns may have held up a critical part of the U.S. deal with Turkey.
Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said negotiations with the United States had stopped this weekend and had not been completed. "There were some answers that we were waiting for, and they had not arrived," Yakis said. "We will look into it again when (the talks) resume."
Tashan said those answers probably concerned Turkey’s future involvement in Iraq’s politics.
"Turkey was never sure it was going to get anything out of cooperating with the United States," said Tashan of the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute. "If Turkey cannot have a say in northern Iraq in the form of protecting the Turkomans and preventing the creation of an independent Kurdish state, I don’t see any benefit for Turkey, apart from maybe a small economic assistance."
Even if Turkey doesn’t have much to win by cooperating with the United States, it has more to lose by failing to allow U.S. troops to use its soil for a pincer move against the Iraqi army, he said.
If Washington fails to open a northern front in its war against Iraq, U.S.- led forces may not be able to move north quickly enough protect the oil fields of Kirkuk and Mosul from being torched by Hussein’s troops or overrun by any one ethnic group.
"That’s our biggest concern," said Ziya, the Iraqi Turkoman representative.

BILATERAL TIES
Turkey’s reticence could also damage its ties with the United States, many in Ankara say. Although both Washington and Ankara said over the weekend that the vote should be seen as a "democratic process in action" and that it would not influence U.S.-Turkey relations, analysts like Yavan are skeptical.
"If the decision is negative, the United States will reconsider its relationship with Turkey," Yavan said. "The U.S. is going to reconsider many of its relationships, like with France and Germany (which strongly oppose any military action against Iraq). Turkey is going to be on the list."
On the other hand, if Turkey allows U.S. troops to launch strikes on Iraq from its territory, it will "make our country the headquarters of a war against Iraq," said Inal Batu, a legislator from the Republican Party of Turkey, which opposes Turkey’s cooperation in the war against Iraq.
"Our vote was not about money or northern Iraq," Batu said. "As far as we’re concerned, this war is not justified, and our long-term interests in the region will suffer after the Americans leave." More than 90 percent of Turkey’s population oppose any involvement in a war against Iraq.
If Ankara allows U.S. troops be stationed here, he said, "Turkey will be seen by its Muslim neighbors as a country from which American troops moved to Iraq and killed innocent people."
"We don’t want to be an accessory to a war that is not justified," he said.