Turkey will cross border to stop refugees

More than a million Kurdish refugees poured across the Turkish and Iranian borders during the 1991 Gulf War.
Turkey has traditional links with the Turkoman people, a semi-nomadic group spread across Iraq, Turkmenistan, Iran, Russia, China and Afghanistan. The Turkomans are the third-largest ethnic group in Iraq after the Arabs and the Kurds.
"Today they are under a lot of pressure," Logoglu said, because the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq holds them responsible for Turkey’s refusal to approve U.S. troops basing.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Turkey intends to be judicious in its deployment of forces.
"There have been discussions from time to time by them about the possibility that they would at some moment, if they thought that was a problem, put some forces in a short distance from their border to try to avoid refugee infiltration of their country in some way," he said Tuesday.
Turkey has received "assurance everyone will be given equal protection" in the region.
"If that promise is kept there will be no problem," Logoglu said.
The promise was made by the United States, which plans to establish a northern front near Turkey if there is a war with Iraq. It had hoped to base more than 60,000 heavily armed troops in southern Turkey to quickly sweep into northern Iraq to seize and protect the oil fields, battle Iraqi forces and keep a lid on potential conflicts between Turkish forces, Kurdish fighters and other groups in the region.
But the Turkish parliament rejected the U.S. basing request earlier in March, forcing the U.S. military to cobble together an alternative plan to insert troops into the region — most likely more lightly armed paratroopers from the 101st Airborne.
U.S. officials are mum about the plan but insist the critical northern front will be opened.
"I’m not going to talk about the operational ways of doing it, but just be assured there will be a northern option," said U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers Tuesday.
"Our interests would be to make sure we had sufficient forces in the north, as General Myers indicated, to dissuade people from doing anything that would involve conflict between or among those groups," Rumsfeld said. "We just don’t want to see any kind of inter-ethnic or inter-communal conflict and the loss of life because people miscalculate and think that we would not have sufficient forces in the north, if force were to be used, to restore the kind of order that we would, and we would intend to be able to do that."
Whether their numbers will be sufficient to protect Turkey’s interests remains to be seen.
"I think Turkey would reserve the option of doing what it must do," Logoglu said. "The best scenario is for the U.S. and Turkey to be able to act together … If that’s not what happens, then Turkey will have to take those steps, whatever they may be, to protect its national interests as it sees fit. That’s all I can say at this point."
The Turkish parliament narrowly rejected the U.S. basing proposal in the face of strong popular opposition. The ayes received more votes than nays, but the abstentions and nay votes added up to more than 50 percent.
"It was a tricky lesson in democracy for all of us," Logoglu said.
There remains a possibility the Turkish parliament could still approve basing U.S. ground forces, but it will take at least a week, the ambassador said.
Turkey has selected a new prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who must be sworn in and the existing government resign. Erdogan will then appoint his Cabinet and get the members approved, and then receive a vote of confidence from the parliament. Only then will he have the ability to put the issues to a second vote, if indeed that is his intention.
"The Turkish government and Mr. Erdogan himself haven’t determined whether to take another vote," Logoglu said.
The initial vote may have been rushed by U.S. pressure, Logoglu said.
"In hindsight things could have been done better," he said.
The United States could help the Turkish government along by not pressing for action before Turkey is ready, Logoglu said.
"The United States has to wait to see how the new leadership evolves in Turkey. It needs to exercise some patience in terms of the time it needs (to set up) a northern front," Logoglu said.
"It would help to get a U.N. Security Council resolution," he added, and said the United States should use its influence with the Kurds to calm the anti-Turkey sentiment in northern Iraq.
The reluctance on the part of Turkey to commit to war is related to its experience in the Gulf War.
Turkey’s economy remains hobbled by the war and its aftermath. Iraq was its second-largest trading partner, and by some estimates Turkey has lost $100 billion because of the sanctions imposed during and after the war.
Turkey is also concerned about the prospect for increased terrorism, the use of weapons of mass destruction near its borders, and most importantly, whether Iraq will remain a single country after the war — or if in the chaos it will devolve into civil war and splinter into autonomous ethnic enclaves, fighting over land and oil.