- (AFP) -- The United States warned regional ally Turkey
not to act unilaterally in northern Iraq where both states might soon be
sending troops in case of war with Baghdad.
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- "Any military move or conflict in Iraq needs to
be under the command of an international coalition," Zalmay Khalilzad,
US President George W. Bush's special envoy to the Iraqi opposition, said
here on Friday.
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- The warning came amid reports of closed-door meetings
between Turkish and US officials on Turkey's plans to dispatch large number
of soldiers in the Kurdish-held area in a bid to protect its regional interests.
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- Ankara, which recently signalled that it would side with
Washington in a possible conflict in the region, fears a war could result
in the break-up of Iraq and the birth of an independent Kurdish state in
the country's north.
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- The region has enjoyed virtual autonomy since the end
of the 1991 Gulf war when local Kurdish groups wrenched it from Baghdad's
control.
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- Concerned that an independent state next door could reignite
insurgency among its own restive Kurdish community, Ankara is planning
to beef up its several thousand-strong military presence in the mountainous
enclave to thwart independence bids.
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- On February 18, the government is scheduled to ask parliament
to approve the possible dispatch of Turkish soldiers to northern Iraq,
along with the deployment of US soldiers on its soil, which they could
use as a springboard to open up a "northern" front against Baghdad.
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- Lawmakers -- who on Thursday voted to allow US engineers
to upgrade Turkish bases and ports -- are widely expected to approve the
requests.
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- But the two main Kurdish factions running northern Iraq
-- the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) -- have made it clear they do not want to see any larger Turkish
military presence.
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- The role of mediator seems to have fallen on the United
States, which is keen to lure support from both the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey
against Baghdad.
-
- A US official told the New York Times on condition of
anonymity that Turkish soldiers would be stationed "in a limited area,
close to the border".
-
- And their role would focus chiefly on humanitarian problems
and discouraging migration into Turkey, he added.
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- The Ankara government has said that it is determined
to stop a possible influx of refugees before they reach the border and
keep them in camps in northern Iraq.
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- "The Turkish soldiers will be in northern Iraq to
take precautions, not to fight ... They will be there to prevent massacres,
waves of refugees and the establishment of a (Kurdish) state," Prime
Minister Abdullah Gul said in remarks published in the mass-circulation
Milliyet daily on Wednesday.
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- In the meantime, the Turkish army pushed on with its
build-up of troops and equipment along its 330-kilometer (204-mile) border
with Iraq, army sources in the southeast said.
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- Fifteen tanks and 50 armoured personnel carriers arrived
by rail in the border town of Cizre on Friday to join a tank battalion
there, the sources said.
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- Another 40 armoured personnel carriers and a number of
mobile bridges arrived in Diyarbakir, the largest city of the mainly Kurdish-populated
southeast.
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- Some 25,000 gas masks were also sent to Diyarbakir on
Thursday to be distributed to army units along the Iraqi frontier.
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