TURKEY: US plans to open up a northern front against Iraq were in doubt last night, as Turkish officials continued to insist that permission to deploy US assault troops in Turkey would only be granted if Washington significantly enhanced its multi-billion dollar offer of aid.
The leader of the parliament's main party, Mr Tayyip Erdogan, said there were no plans for a parliamentary vote this week on allowing US troops on Turkish soil.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, spoke to Turkey's Prime Minister, Mr Abdullah Gul, by telephone to review bilateral talks over Iraq.
In Ankara, the US ambassador, Mr Robert Pearson, said: "Time is of critical importance for us. We want to reach a solution as soon as possible. We are working hard."
In Washington last weekend, US officials made what they described as a final offer of $26 billion, $6 billion in direct grants and $20 billion in indirect loans.
On Monday, Turkey's leaders retorted that the figure was insufficient to enable them to persuade unwilling lawmakers to accept US troop deployment, and asked for an increase in direct grants to $10 billion. Washington has yet to respond to their demands.
Turkish stubbornness has taken the Bush administration by surprise. Around 2,000 US military engineers have been in Turkey since February 6th, preparing Turkish bases for war, and Washington had expected a Turkish parliamentary decision on full military deployment this Tuesday.
But with polls showing more than 90 per cent of Turks opposed to war, Turkey's leaders seized on splits in NATO and worldwide anti-war protests as an excuse to postpone the vote indefinitely.
Speaking on Tuesday to members of the majority Justice and Development Party, party leader Mr Tayyip Erdogan warned Turkey might ultimately refuse to collaborate in a US-led assault on Iraq.
"Our American friends should not interpret this decision [to allow the updating of bases] to mean that Turkey has embarked on an irreversible road", he said. "It is not possible for us to accept anything which we don't approve of, don't believe to be necessary or feel we cannot explain to our people."
Continued Turkish vacillation has left four US ships carrying tanks and other heavy equipment intended for a northern front stranded in the eastern Mediterranean. Some 20 other Turkey-bound ships holding an estimated 15,000 troops have temporarily docked in Greece.
The aid package dispute "will be settled one way or another rather soon", the White House spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, said yesterday. "We continue to work with Turkey as a friend. But it is decision time."
Many Turks fear an assault on Iraq could be a repeat of the 1991 Gulf War, when 500,000 Iraqi Kurdish refugees flooded into Turkey and UN sanctions ended a thriving trade with Baghdad. But Turkey's diplomatic brinksmanship also stems from its conviction that its aid is essential to US war plans.
Military analysts say a second US front pushing down through Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq would lower the economic and human cost of the war, secure the oil fields around Mosul and Kirkuk from possible Iraqi sabotage and protect Turkey from the refugee crisis it fears.
Although they say a northern front could still be possible without permission to deploy troops within Turkey, the near-impossibility of airlifting heavy material into northern Iraq would limit US military presence there to light infantry units.
A commentator for the newspaper Milliyet, Mr Sami Cohen, thinks it unlikely that Turkey will hold out much longer. "Turks learn their bargaining in the bazaar, and they can sense when the customer is about to walk out".