ANKARA: It was an extraordinary outcome to an extraordinary vote on Saturday, as the Turn favour compared to just 250 against, the opposition Republican People’s Party found a neat loophole in the constitution which meant that the 19 deputies who voted “neither” had in effect voted against the motion.
With almost no one expecting such a result, the government finds itself in serious trouble.
It now has basically two options — to try again, or to forget about playing any part in the war and, more important for Turkey, in any post-Saddam Iraq.
To try again would use up even more precious political capital than the government has already spent. Elected in a landslide in November, the government has found that its grass roots are overwhelmingly against any war.
Thanks to the government refusing to allow Saturday’s debate in parliament to be open to the public or the press, it was unclear exactly how many government backbenchers were listening to their constituents and not their leaders but it appears the number was almost a third of the ruling party’s members.
But failure to try again could result in serious difficulties for the government on a number of fronts. Most obviously, the government would forfeit $30 billion in grants and loans the United States has promised in return for allowing US troops to be based on Turkish soil.
Only just climbing out of its worst recession in more than half a century, such a result could blow the government’s budget plans out of the water.
But that could be nothing compared to the political problems that may arise if the Kurds in northern Iraq attempt to declare independence in the aftermath of a US-led war.
The vote on Saturday was not only to authorize the deployment of US troops in Turkey but also to allow the government to order Turkish troops into northern Iraq.
According to Turkish ministers, the main reason for allowing Turkish troops into Iraq would be to establish refugee camps for the hundreds of thousands expected to flee the fighting. The main reason, however, according to most commentators was to stop the Kurds in the region from declaring independence.
Ankara fears that such a development could lead to Turkey’s own restive Kurds taking up guns once again to fight for their own autonomy.
A failure to give approval also comes as an undoubted blow to Washington, both politically and militarily.
The two NATO allies have always had close ties, Turkey has contributed troops to various US causes and wars including Korea, Bosnia and Afghanistan, and Washington was hoping to be able to use Muslim and secular Turkey as an example for what kind of Iraq could be established post-Saddam.
On the military front, Turkey could well get blamed if a war against Iraq gets bogged down. Pentagon military planners had hoped that US troops in Turkey would be able to open up a second, so- called “northern front” against Iraqi forces, thus considerably shortening the war.
All is not clear in Ankara, and the government may well try to force a second vote on the issue, this time pulling the whips out to ensure its own deputies vote in line.
But one thing is for sure, Turkey is definitely not in George Bush’s “coalition of the willing”.—dpa
