March 23, 2003	Sunday	Muharram 19, 1424

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ANKARA, March 22: Turkey on Saturday denied sending troops to northern Iraq, but asserted that its army was ready to intervene in a Kurdish-held enclave there despite opposition from the US and European allies.

Washington has repeatedly cautioned Ankara that any unilateral Turkish action in northern Iraq could trigger clashes with local Kurds and complicate US operations in the region.

“There have been reports that Turkish armed forces have entered northern Iraq overnight. Those reports are not true,” the Turkish army said in a statement, more than 12 hours after CNN-Turk television reported that about 1,000 soldiers had crossed the border.

The Turkish parliament authorized the government on Thursday to send troops into northern Iraq, where Ankara perceives threats to its security by local Kurds and Turkish Kurdish rebels in hiding.

“The Turkish armed forces have completed all kinds of planning and stand ready to implement those plans if the situation and circumstances require,” the army said.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Turkey was planning to set up a security belt along the border. “The measures we will take will stretch like a belt along the border,” he told NTV television.

GERMAN THREAT: Germany said on Saturday it would withdraw its military crew with NATO aircraft deployed to protect Turkey from any attack by Iraq if Ankara joined the US-led war on its neighbour.

A Turkish offensive would “lead to the removal of German soldiers aboard NATO’s AWACS planes,” Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said in Berlin on Saturday at a joint news conference with Defence Minister Peter Struck. “If Turkey becomes belligerent we will be in a whole new situation ... We do not want to take part in a war,” Mr Fischer said.

“If Turkey becomes active in the war, our obligation as a (NATO) ally would no longer apply,” Struck added.

Mr Fischer said that for the moment, Germany’s intelligence services had reported “no significant change ... concerning the presence of Turkish troops in northern Iraq”.

RUSSIAN WARNING: The US-led war in Iraq could spread to Turkey if Ankara deploys troops inside Kurdish-held northern Iraq, a top Russian official warned on Saturday.

“The fire of war could spread to Turkish territory,” said Dmitry Rogozin, head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, or State Duma. “This war resembles a Russian doll, with one doll inside another. One war started and another is building inside,” Interfax news agency quoted Rogozin as saying.

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said on Saturday that Turkish forces had entered northern Iraq. US opposition to the deployment of Turkish forces inside northern Iraq held up talks between Washington and Ankara on opening up Turkish air space to US war planes so the latter could attack Iraq from the north.

KURDISH WARNING: Kurdish leaders in Turkey and northern Iraq on Saturday issued fierce warnings to Ankara against any military intervention in the autonomous Kurdish region.

Such a move would lead to “uncontrolled clashes between the population and the Turkish army,” said Hoshyar Zebari, a top official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).—AFP