IRAQ: Baghdad yesterday threatened to use all the weapons at its disposal to attack any nation helping a US-led assault, as Iraq's northern neighbour, Turkey, wrestled with Washington's request to deploy thousands of troops on its soil.
"War is a war. If aggression is launched against Iraq, it certainly has the right to defend itself by any methods," the Iraqi Vice-President, Mr Taha Yassin Ramadan, told Russia's Vremya Novostei newspaper. "Anyone helping the Americans will be considered their accomplice."
Turkey's parliament again delayed a debate on allowing tens of thousands of US troops to use its soil as a staging post for an attack. Turkey has demanded substantial aid to offset the impact of a military campaign on its fragile economy.
As a result, the crews of 80-odd US ships moored off southern Turkey faced two more nights at sea. The parliamentary vote on a resolution permitting 62,000 soldiers and 320 military aircraft into Turkey has been delayed by widespread Turkish opposition to war.
"If parliament were to refuse to approve [the resolution], democracy would be strengthened," Turkey's deputy prime minister, Mr Ertugrul Yalcinbayar, said yesterday. Opinion polls show more than 90 per cent of Turks are opposed to war.
Though as many as 60 of the ruling Justice and Development Party's 362 deputies may abstain from voting when parliament meets today or tomorrow, the party's huge parliamentary majority and tight discipline means the resolution will almost certainly pass.
In the first deployment of NATO hardware to assist Turkey, two giant AWACS early-warning planes flew yesterday to central Turkey.