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ANKARA, July 20: The US should compensate for any damages Turkey would incur in a possible military operation against its neighbour Iraq, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said on Saturday.
“The United States is our closest ally. And we are situated in a very critical location,” Ecevit said in an interview with the mass-circulation daily Sabah.
“Whether there is an operation in Iraq or not, whether Turkey participates in such an operation or not, we believe the US should meet as much as possible the sacrifices that we would endure,” Ecevit said.
Turkey has urged the US to keep up intense consultations on possible military operations on Iraq, which it fears could spell dire consequences for its crisis-hit economy and regional political balances.
Given Washington’s determination to get rid of Saddam Hussein, Ankara’s position has now focused on demanding economic and political guarantees from the US rather than opposing an operation, observers say.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz met Turkish leaders in Ankara this week, and his talks were widely interpreted to have resulted in a softening in Ankara’s stiff opposition to a military move against Iraq.
The US plans for Iraq are a source of concern for Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO.
They come at a time of major economic woes and a political crisis which has forced Ecevit to call early polls in November.
Turkey is home to an American base, from where US jets launched strikes against Baghdad in 1991 and which they still use to enforce a no-fly zone over northern Iraq.
Ankara will almost certainly agree to open its bases to the US if it decides to strike Iraq, observers say.
But Turkey is wary that turmoil in Iraq will further damage its ailing economy, just as the Gulf war did.
Ankara estimates it lost some 40 billion dollars as a result of sanctions on Iraq after the war.
The country is also concerned that an operation against Baghdad may help the Kurds in northern Iraq to set up an independent state, which could have a knock-on effect on its own Kurds at a time when a bloody Kurdish rebellion in the southeast of the country has subsided.
VISAS FOR IRAQIS: The United States on Friday denied rejecting visas for Iraqi delegates to attend upcoming meetings in New York of a preparatory committee on the International Criminal Court, after Baghdad protested the alleged slight.
“The US delegation to the United Nations received no request for visas from the Iraqi delegation to the UN regarding Iraqi officials’ attendance at meetings on the International Criminal Court,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
“We never got a request for visas for that,” he told reporters, referring to the July 1-12 meeting. “We can’t turn them down unless they apply.”
The Iraqi foreign ministry said it had protested to the United Nations over the alleged refusal and called on UN chief Kofi Annan to ensure that the United States respects its obligations as host of the world body.
US authorities “denied the Iraqi delegation visas, preventing its members from taking part in the meetings held under UN auspices,” Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said in a letter to Annan.
Sabri urged Annan to intervene to ensure the United States “does not violate its obligations to the United Nations and does not obstruct Iraqi participation in UN meetings”, according to the statement.—AFP
