September 28, 2002	Saturday	Rajab 20, 1423

ISTANBUL: Turkey’s prime minister has issued a warning to Iraqi Kurdish groups who this week approved a constitution that envisions replacing the dictatorship of President Saddam Hussein with a “federal Iraq.” The prospect alarms Turkish leaders, who fear a US military campaign in Iraq will unleash ethnic Kurds’ ambitions to create an independent state.

“Even though they say, ‘We are against founding a Kurdish state,’ a de facto state is already on the way to being formed,” Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit complained on Wednesday night, hours after the draft constitution was approved. “If this becomes official, there will be serious problems.”

Iraqi Kurdish officials said Ecevit overreacted to what they characterized as a tentative move in an open process intended to avoid chaos in the aftermath of Saddam’s ouster. The constitution, agreed to by the two rival Kurdish political parties that have controlled an autonomous section of northern Iraq since 1991, still must be submitted to other Iraqi opposition groups that the United States is trying to mobilize against the Iraqi leader.

The flap pointed up the fragile nature of the coalition the Bush administration aims to bring together to remove a despot it accuses of producing chemical and biological weapons. In recent weeks, Turkish officials have obliquely threatened to send troops into northern Iraq to thwart Kurdish ambitions there; a Kurdish leader replied that northern Iraq would then become a “graveyard” for Turkish troops.

Administration officials say no decision has been made on what action to take against Saddam, and the UN Security Council is mulling proposals that might sanction the use of force.

Turkey, as a longtime strategic US ally that borders northern Iraq, would be a crucial base for US ground troops and warplanes in almost any military scenario. But its leadership is wary of the Iraqi Kurds, whom the Pentagon is preparing to train to work alongside US forces inside Iraq. Turkey, which is home to 13 million ethnic Kurds, has spent much of the last two decades fighting Turkish Kurd separatists.

The draft constitution, which calls for a “federated zone” encompassing Kurdish areas inside Iraq, was viewed as an expression of Kurdish ambitions for full independence, an outcome Turkey has repeatedly said it would move to prevent with the use of troops.

“It only becomes official when all Iraqi people make it official,” said Safeen Dizayee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which approved the document along with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service.