October 27, 2003	Monday	Sha’aban 30, 1424

BAGHDAD: Plans for Turkish troops to join a US-led multinational force in Iraq have stalled in the teeth of Iraqi objections, maybe for good.

If any Turkish troops do deploy, they may take on a low-key role such as securing arms dumps, rather than patrolling flashpoint towns in the “Sunni triangle” north and west of Baghdad, a Western diplomat said.

“The reaction in Turkey and Iraq has been very negative,” said Mohammed Taufiq, an adviser to Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, who is soon to take over the rotating presidency of Iraq’s US-appointed Governing Council.

“Turkish troops would complicate the security situation. Some Iraqis feel that if they come, they will never leave,” he said, adding that other groups on the council opposed the idea more vocally than the Kurds.

Turkey, uneasy about any moves towards Kurdish independence, has viewed with disquiet Kurdish rule of an enclave in northern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War.

Washington, finding other nations wary of committing forces who might be identified with US-British occupiers, had hoped Turkey’s offer this month would provide relief to its 130,000 beleaguered troops in Iraq.

Guerrillas have killed 108 US soldiers since May 1, when President George W. Bush declared major combat over, three weeks after Saddam Hussein’s fall.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted on Friday as saying the United States had asked for a break in talks on the issue. He gave no reason.

“Erdogan has it about right,” a US diplomat in the region said. There has been no official US comment.

A decision to put the plan on ice signals that the United States has failed to persuade the Governing Council, its own creation, to drop its objections to troops from Turkey or any of Iraq’s other neighbours.

BOMBERS’ MESSAGE: Turkey says the bomb attack on its embassy in Baghdad this month will not sway its position.

But the question remains as to how much benefit an injection of Turkish military manpower would bring.

“The US is after cannon fodder,” said Toby Dodge, the British author of a new book named Inventing Iraq.

“But what they really need is intelligence and Arabic speakers. They are talking of 10,000 (Turkish) troops, but substituting expertise for numbers would be more politically palatable and strategically useful.”

Western analysts and Asian diplomats see scant chance that Turkish troops will be sent, given the plan’s unpopularity with the Turkish and Iraqi publics.

“Hostility to the idea is coming not just from Iraqi Kurds, but other groups, even in the central Sunni area where they are expected to deploy,” said Neil Partrick of the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.

Kurds are all too aware of Turkey’s hostility to their national aspirations. Sunni and Shia Arabs recall the days when Ottoman Turks ruled what is now Iraq — and some fear Ankara has lingering territorial ambitions.

Turkey champions Iraq’s small Turkmen minority, but denies it has any secret agenda to regain control of the lost Ottoman provinces, including the Kirkuk oil fields.

It says it wants to aid its US ally in promoting a stable, unified Iraq, but is not yearning to send troops.

The Turkish parliament voted on October 7 to offer troops for one year, but the weeks are already ticking by and Iraq’s Governing Council could well defer any formal decision until after Ramazan.

SOOTHING RELATIONS: The parliamentary vote may have met a key Turkish goal — to repair US ties strained by the assembly’s refusal to let US forces use Turkish soil to invade Iraq.

The move paved the way for an $8.5 billion US loan offer to relieve Turkey’s debt burden. Washington links the money to Turkish “cooperation” in Iraq.

Iraqi Kurds, who fought alongside US invasion forces and have kept the north relatively peaceful since, suspect Ankara’s motives after years of Turkish military conflict with Turkish Kurd rebels in the border zone.

Turkey reserves the right to pursue across the border Turkish Kurd rebels who have bases in northern Iraq, but the United States wants it to refrain from unilateral action.—Reuters