TURKEY: Turkey's powerful military yesterday broke its silence on the issue of Turkey's involvement in a possible Iraqi war, saying that it supported tentative government plans to push a new Bill on US military deployment through parliament.
"We will suffer the same damage if we do not participate in a war, but we will not see compensation for the damage after the war," said Chief of Staff Gen Hilmi Ozkok, referring to Washington's offer of around $30 billion in aid in return for Turkish co-operation.
He added that a second front opened across Turkey's 218-mile border with northern Iraq would shorten the conflict.
In a major setback both to US war plans and to Turkey's government, parliament last Saturday rejected a motion to allow 62,000 US troops to begin deploying in Turkish bases throughout the country's southeast.
The defeat of the Bill also ended plans for thousands of Turkish troops to form a 12-mile wide buffer zone inside Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, whose leaders Ankara suspects of plotting a bid for independence under cover of war.
Analysts here blame the shock defeat mainly on Turkey's leaders, whose efforts to win round a public massively opposed to war were at best lukewarm. But they say the refusal of generals to state their position at last Friday's influential National Security Council, a monthly policy meeting of top brass and civilian leaders, severely undermined last minute government preparations for the vote.
Though there is no love lost between Turkey's secular military and the five-month old Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which generals suspect of links to political Islam, Gen Ozkok denied claims his colleagues had intended to isolate civilian leaders.
"There are political, economic, social and legal aspects to a decision on war in Iraq, as well as the security aspect", he said. "As soldiers, we do not consider ourselves experts in all of these." The Turkish government has yet to issue a date for a second vote on US deployment. But individual AKP deputies predict the Bill will be put off until after a March 9th by-election they expect to be party chairman Mr Tayyip Erdogan's first step towards taking over as prime minister.
What is certain, though, is that Gen Ozkok's remarks will bolster Mr Erdogan's attempts to instil discipline in a party dangerously divided by the war.
Around 100 of AKP's 362 deputies opposed the deployment Bill last Saturday, and senior government ministers continue to criticise plans for Turkish involvement.
"The conditions [for a vote] haven't changed," said Deputy Prime Minister Mr Ertugrul Yalcinbayir yesterday. "If the conditions don't change, the result won't change." In a country where deputies traditionally follow their leaders blindly, AKP deputies optimistically describe such opposition as evidence their party is democratic.