Political reaction: Turkey: Turkey's Foreign Minister, Mr Abdullah Gul, yesterday tried to heal a rift with Washington over its refusal to allow US troops on to its soil. US unease over Ankara's role in northern Iraq will also be discussed.
A US envoy, Mr Zalmay Zhalilzad, is expected in Ankara today for talks which a US diplomat said were aimed at pursuing "co-ordination on northern Iraq".
In an indication of European anxiety at the attitude of the Turkish government to the Kurds and the consequences of any Turkish incursion into northern Iraq, the Belgian Foreign Minister, Mr Louis Michel, said yesterday that it would be "unthinkable" to allow Turkey to join the European Union if it invaded northern Iraq.
On Saturday, the Turkish government denied reports that it had sent more than 1,500 troops into the Kurdish-controlled area. NATO has accepted the assurances. However, military sources in south-eastern Turkey said that they stood by their contention that troops had crossed the frontier.
Turkey has come under heavy pressure from the US, NATO and the EU not to add to the small force it has in northern Iraq.
Ankara says that it has the right to cross the border and insists that its aim would be to marshal refugees and prevent a humanitarian disaster.
Kurdish groups in northern Iraq oppose a Turkish incursion and some are threatening to resist one with force.
Turkey's relations with its NATO ally became strained after the Turkish parliament refused to allow the US to send some 62,000 troops through Turkey into northern Iraq.
But Mr Gul told reporters that Ankara and Washington were working to resolve the problem. "There is nothing negative in our talks with the Americans. Everything is moving forward with co-ordination and mutual understanding," he said.
Turkey says it is concerned that Iraqi Kurds might use the US-led war against Iraq as an opportunity to establish a separate Kurdish state. Ankara fears that such a state would reignite the armed Kurdish separatism in south-eastern Turkey which cost some 30,000 lives in the 1980s and 1990s.
Washington is concerned that confrontation between Turkish troops and Kurdish groups could seriously disrupt the US military campaign in Iraq and have wider consequences for attempts to draw a fragmented country together.
In Brussels, Mr Michel urged Ankara to stay out of northern Iraq. Speaking in a televised debate, he said that he would be involved in a diplomatic effort to exert "very strong" pressure on Ankara not to send Turkish troops over its border with Iraq.
"I think that would be the determining element for refusing them accession to Europe," he said. "It is unthinkable for Turkey to join Europe if they enter Kurdistan."
Reports of a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq sparked a quick reaction from Germany, which said that it would withdraw its crews from NATO surveillance planes patrolling Turkish airspace if Ankara became a belligerent force in northern Iraq.
The failure of talks to unite the divided island of Cyprus has already hurt Turkey' bid to join the EU. Ankara won a pledge in December that the EU would open entry negotiations if a December 2004 summit agreed that it had met political and economic criteria. - (Reuters)