MIDDLE EAST: The US Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney, ended a 12-nation tour which won little overt support for a possible US attack on Iraq and left him grappling with the crisis in the Middle East.
Mr Cheney left Ankara for Washington after giving Turkish officials assurances the US was not planning to attack President Saddam Hussein's regime in the near future.
Turkey was a key staging point for US attacks on neighbouring Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and US planes are based at Incirlik air base, from where they patrol the skies over northern Iraq.
Ankara was the last stop of the long tour to rally support for the next phase of the war on terrorism and to raise pressure on Iraq, accused by Washington of developing weapons of mass destruction.
The 10-day tour took in nine Arab states, Israel and Turkey, as well as Britain, the only stop where Mr Cheney found any appetite for a confrontation with Mr Saddam.
Despite his strong Middle East experience and contacts, gleaned from years as an oil executive, Mr Cheney encountered strong reservations from key US Arab allies, such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
King Fahd and Prince Crown Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia told Mr Cheney this week they would refuse to allow US troops to use the kingdom as a launch pad for strikes against Iraq or any other Arab or Islamic country.
The message from the Arab world was that the US must first tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before dealing with Iraq.
Turkey's Prime Minister, Mr Bulent Ecevit, expressed relief yesterday over a US assurance that Washington was not planning imminent military action against Iraq.
Mr Cheney said in talks on Tuesday that Washington was not planning to strike Iraq "in the near future". Mr Ecevit told the NTV news channel in a live interview: "I feel greatly relieved." "This does not mean an operation against Iraq has been totally ruled out," Mr Ecevit said. "But I do not think there could be military action in the coming few months."
The Turkish prime minister said Mr Cheney's remarks constituted a "good opportunity" for the Iraqi regime to reconsider its refusal for UN weapons inspections to resume.
"I want to make a serious warning to Iraq. If it opens up its doors to arms monitors, the United States could be expected to take a more positive stance," Mr Ecevit said.
He underlined that Washington was still concerned over Baghdad's alleged development of weapons of mass destruction and wanted to oust Mr Saddam.
"My observation is that the US administration has not yet reached a decision on how they will do this," Mr Ecevit said.
Iraq said yesterday that Mr Cheney had failed to win support for US military action against Baghdad during his 11-nation tour and showed no sign of yielding on arms inspection.
"Vice-President of the American evil administration Dick Cheney has left the Arab region with a bitter disappointment," a commentary by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) said.
"Cheney failed to persuade any official in the countries which he visited of Washington's pretexts and lies against Iraq and was confronted with a total rejection of any hostile attempt to attack it," the INA commentary added.