Defense minister hints could back Iraq strikes
Defence minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu hinted that the NATO member might drop its objections to a U.S. attack on Iraq if circumstances changed. "We have officially said again and again that we do not want an operation in Iraq but new conditions could bring new evaluations onto the agenda," the Anatolian news agency reported yesterday. Speaking to reporters at a seminar on the defence industry in Ankara, he said, "I said that with a general meaning, it is not based on any specific information or meaning".
Turkey's defence minister does not wield as much influence as Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit or officers of the military General Staff, but Cakmakoglu's comments were the first sign from a senior politician that Turkey could change its position.
He was also asked whether Turkey's sending troops to Afghanistan had anything to do with the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), to which he replied that it did not and that it was entirely to do with the new administration that is trying to be established in Afghanistan.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to visit Turkey next week as part of a tour of Russia and other European countries. Turkey supports the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan but is wary of the violence spreading to its southern neighbour Iraq. On Monday, U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that Iraq allow back international arms inspectors and said President Saddam Hussein would "find out" what the consequences would be if he refused.
Meanwhile, the renowned American periodical Forbes ran an article calling on the West to come and destroy Saddam with Turkey's help. The magazine's editor Steve Forbes proposed that the struggle against the Taliban continue, that a second front be opened soon in Iraq. Maintaining there was no longer the need to forge an international alliance such as during the Gulf War to do this, Forbes said that all of Iraq's airspace should be made a no-fly zone and that northern Iraq should be given to Turkey as compensation for taking it under its administrative control. He also wrote there was no doubt the largely Kurdish population of northern Iraq, which has a large proportion of Iraq's oil reserves, would much prefer being ruled by Turkey to being ruled by Saddam.
He reportedly met bin Laden, the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, in 1998 in Kandahar, a region in southeastern Afghanistan where bin Laden had training camps.Al-Qaeda training manual seized after the September 11 attack on the WTC (from one of the hijackers/Terrorists apartement I believe) reveals that Terrorist activities were to be discussed only in face-to-face discussions. I.E., no e-mail, phones, faxes, etc. Makes it tough unless you just happen to know about the scheduled meeting and can plant a bug (electronic surveillance) there. . .Iraq has denied any meeting took place.
The alleged meeting is the second suspected link between Iraqi intelligence and those implicated in the attacks. Mohamed Atta, believed to be one of the hijackers of a plane that slammed into the World Trade Center, is said to have met in April with an Iraqi intelligence agent in the Czech capital Prague.
Thanks for the post, Rumrunner - and for the ping, Sabertooth!