Turkey Official: Agreement on Troop Deal

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's foreign minister said Friday there was broad agreement with the United States on the conditions for deploying U.S. troops in his country ahead of a possible war in Iraq.

Yasar Yakis did not say when he expected a deal to be reached, saying that depended on ongoing negotiations on some outstanding issues regarding the military, economic and political dimensions of the deployment.

"There is a very broad agreement on all subjects," Yakis said in an interview with CNN International. "The remaining issues are not that many, but I think we will be able to overcome the differences and mutually agree."

Turkish and U.S. officials have been in intense negotiations for weeks on the conditions of the deployment. Washington wants to use Turkey to open a northern front for war with Iraq and has warned Ankara that time is running out.

U.S. Ambassador Robert Pearson said Friday after talks at the Foreign Ministry that the two sides were continuing to overcome obstacles.

One of the main sticking points has been the size of a U.S. aid package to compensate Turkey for losses incurred in a war, diplomats said, although military and political issues were also outstanding.

Yakis appeared confident that Turkey's parliament would ratify an agreement. If Turkey's "expectations are fulfilled, then of course it would increase the chances of the motion being approved," he said.

However, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's leading politician, said he hopes lawmakers from his ruling party would approve the deployment but he would not order them to, an official with his Justice and Development Party said Friday on condition of anonymity.

That raised the possibility that a draft authorizing the deployment could be defeated in parliament. An overwhelming majority of Turks opposed to a war in Iraq, and deputies would have difficulty justifying their decision to back a U.S. deployment to their constituencies.

Washington has been pressing for Turkey to accept a quick agreement. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday he was expecting an answer by Turkey by the end of the day - but the Turks said talks were continuing.

Turkey has demanded $10 billion in grants and $20 billion more in loans, while the United States is proposing a grant of around $6 billion.

Negotiators are discussing the possibility that some of the U.S. grant money could be converted in much larger loans, a Western diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Under the formula being discussed, each billion in grants that is converted would become $6 billion to $10 billion in loans, depending on the length of the loan and the amount of interest paid, the diplomat said.

Washington is also insisting that the loans be linked to a stringent program of economic reform that is backed by the International Monetary Fund. Turkey wants the U.S. aid to be separate from the IMF loans and conditions.

Turks are also worried that war in Iraq will lead to the creation of an independent Kurdish state that would boost aspirations of Turkey's Kurds.

According to the daily newspaper Hurriyet, Turkey is insisting that Iraqi Kurdish groups controlling northern Iraq be disarmed after a war under Turkish supervision.

Toughening Turkey's stance, Erdogan insisted that any agreement had to be in writing and signed by the "highest authority," Anatolia said. The Western diplomat said Washington believed that once the substance of the agreement had been reached, the form would not be a problem.

The standoff comes as U.S. ships loaded with tanks and other equipment are off the Turkish coast, ready to bring in war equipment for the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.

Turkish lawmakers have already authorized the U.S. modernization of Turkish bases and ports.

Get a load of this:

Turkey fouls up the US works
By Jean-Christophe Peuch

PRAGUE - The United States has been pressing Ankara to authorize the deployment of tens of thousands of US soldiers north of the 350 kilometer Turkish-Iraqi border with a view to opening a second front against Baghdad. For the Pentagon, this plan should help take the burden off a possible primary southern invasion from Kuwait and Qatar in the Persian Gulf area.

Washington has already amassed 150,000 army personnel in the region for an attack, while Britain is considering sending more than 40,000 troops. Four US ships carrying heavy equipment for use in a possible "northern front" are reportedly waiting off the Turkish coast. An additional three dozen supply ships are due to arrive in the area soon.

All the United States needs now is Turkey's green light. With more than 90 percent of Turks opposed to a new war, Ankara is proving to be a tough negotiator now under the recently-elected Justice and Development Party, a political grouping with Islamic roots.

Phillip Mitchell is a ground-forces analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. He told RFE/RL correspondents that it may be a matter of days before the Pentagon is forced to modify its war plans. "All the US mechanized troops' equipment is at the far end of the Mediterranean [Sea], and [the Americans] cannot hold it there for much longer. If permission [by Turkey] is not going to be given, then that equipment and those ships will have to be diverted to the Suez Canal and onwards to Kuwait to meet up with troops there," Mitchell said.

Some news reports say that the Pentagon might discount the possibility of Turkey's cooperation if Ankara doesn't make a decision within the next 48 hours. The US State Department has so far declined to confirm that Washington is considering any such deadline.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told a briefing on Thursday that Washington has options to deploy troops elsewhere in the region should Turkey reject the US's "final offer". "Turkey, of course, is a desirable [partner] from the strategic point of view for any military staging, but the military of the United States is sufficiently flexible, and whatever decision is made, the United States will still be successful in carrying out any military operations," Fleischer said.

Michele Flournoy is a senior adviser for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said that, even if the US political leadership decides to continue talks with Turkey without an immediate agreement, the Pentagon might still confront logistical problems. "I think [military planners] are not going to wait forever. Once you deploy large numbers of US troops into the region, the clock is ticking, because if you don't use them, you have to start worrying about degrading [combat] readiness and also the need to rotate them out of the region after a certain point of time," Flournoy said.

Turkish lawmakers on February 6 decided to allow US army engineers to upgrade a number of seaports and airfields for use in a possible attack on Iraq. But Ankara this week warned that ongoing work to modernize military facilities does not prejudge the possible use of national territory as a springboard for a ground offensive against Baghdad.

On February 18, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said that any large-scale US military buildup within Turkey's borders is conditional on passage of a second UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

Although US President George W Bush this week said he does not believe a new UN resolution is necessary, both Washington and London are reportedly working on a document that would placate widespread opposition to immediate military action against Iraq. It is unclear when a draft resolution - if ever - will be submitted to the Security Council.

US officials believe that Turkish-US ties are suffering because of Ankara's decision to put off a parliamentary debate over the issue of US military deployment. The hearings were due to have taken place on February 18, but were adjourned indefinitely after the Turkish government told Washington it could not guarantee a "yes" vote. New Turkish-US talks took place on Thursday in Ankara but yielded no result.

Speaking in Ankara after a meeting with Turkish Foreign Ministry undersecretary Ugur Ziyal, US ambassador Robert Pearson indicated that time is running out for Turkey to make a decision. "Our time frame is the [US] president's, and I won't speak for him. But as I've said before, time is a critical issue for us. Both sides are working hard, and I hope we can find a solution."

Also on Thursday, a Turkish cabinet meeting concluded that the US has failed so far to allay Ankara's concerns about the economic, political and military risks inherent in involvement in any US-led operation against Iraq.

Washington is said to be offering Ankara an economic aid package worth $26 billion - partly in grants and partly in loans - to compensate for the losses that would be incurred in any war with Iraq. But Turkey, which says that the 1991 Gulf War cost its economy some $40 billion, is asking for more money. It is also demanding written guarantees from the US Congress that, unlike what happened 12 years ago, Washington will honor its promises.

Yet analysts generally agree that money is not Turkey's only concern. Ankara is trying to obtain firm US assurances that no autonomous or independent Kurdistan will emerge from the rubble of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime. Turkey, which is considering sending some 50,000 soldiers to Iraq's Kurdish-held areas to prevent a massive influx of refugees, is also refusing to put its troops under US command. Finally, it wants US guarantees regarding the future of Iraq's 300,000-strong Turkic community.

Most defense experts believe the inability to stage a major invasion from Turkey would strike a serious blow to the Pentagon's war plans, even though the US may still be able to achieve its war objectives. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that there are ways to compensate if Turkey decides not to cooperate.

British analyst Mitchell agreed, saying that losing Turkey would not prove fatal to US war plans against Iraq. "I am sure [the Americans] can go ahead without an attack from the north. That just means that the southern offensive would take priority. I am sure they have already factored in this possibility and this option. How they would attack Iraq on a one-front basis, I have no idea. But I am sure it can be done and will be done," Mitchell said.

Flournoy said that, in the event of what she described as the "unlikely" scenario that Turkey will deny US troops access to its territory, Washington might turn to other countries for assistance. "I think there are certainly other options for aircraft and air forces. They would be staged from other bases in Europe, and they would simply have to travel longer distances to conduct their missions. I think for ground forces, what we would see is a shift in focus toward other countries that border on Iraq and much greater pressure put on them to accept additional ground forces so that that second front could be created," Flournoy said.

Flournoy said that Saudi Arabia and Jordan are among the countries the US could ask to allow large numbers of its troops to operate on their soil. Saudi Arabia served as a launchpad for US-led coalition forces against Iraq in 1991, but it has still not made clear whether it would authorize the use of its bases in any new war. Like Turkey, the Saudi kingdom already hosts US and British aircraft tasked with implementing the no-fly zones imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War.

Although Jordan did not participate in the previous conflict, Washington has been considering using Iraq's southwestern neighbor as a possible springboard. Despite Amman's denials to the contrary, some 1,500 US special operations troops have reportedly been stationed in Jordan since October.

Anthony Cordesman, a former senior official at the US State and Defense departments, is one of the US's top military analysts. Cordesman, in an interview with RFE/RL, said, "We really have no access to the [Persian] Gulf except through Kuwait. It would put all of our advance on one line of advance; it would greatly complicate the logistic problems; it would complicate the supply problems and make our line of advance far more predictable. There would be the difficulty that Iraq would be able to predict the lines of advance and that it would be relatively secure in the north."

That means that Iraq could concentrate on defending its south and west, where US troops may attack from Jordan, a task Cordesman said would greatly simplify Iraq's defense and complicate US efforts to achieve a swift victory. "And it certainly would create potential problems in the course of the war, because the United States would not be moving through the Kurdish areas, not be securing the north, and this creates a higher risk of Kurdish separatism and a different kind of Turkish intervention," Cordesman said.

Reports say that, should Turkey eventually deny its territory for use in a ground offensive, the Pentagon might still consider attacking Iraq from the north with airborne troops in a scenario that would involve substantially fewer troops.

Kamran al-Karadaghi is deputy director of Radio Free Iraq. He said that existing infrastructure in Iraq's Kurdish-led areas is suitable for a possible airlift option, although such airfields would not be appropriate for a large-scale offensive. "If you're talking about special-forces operations, then it is possible, because in Kurdistan there are a few small [airfields], and the Americans have been working on them for months now to prepare them for possible use. So I think there is a possibility, really, for this kind of operation. But for a [large]-scale operation, I think it would be difficult without having [ground] troops [entering] from Turkey," al-Karadaghi said.

Analyst Mitchell, himself a retired British army officer, agreed that an airlift operation would have to be limited in scope. Should Ankara decide against the use of its territory by US tanks and infantry, he said an airborne invasion from the north is unlikely, even though any US war plan probably envisages airlifting some troops into Iraqi Kurdistan. "That was going to go ahead anyway and that will probably still go ahead. But the problem is that once airborne troops are here, once [they] are landed, they can only stay on the ground for a limited period of time before other advancing troops have to meet up with them. They can only sustain themselves on the ground for a limited period of time before they would require assistance. So that would be a very difficult option," Mitchell said.

Officials in the US capital claim that Turkey is bound to open its territory to US troops for fear of damaging relations. Convinced that it is a key element in US war plans, Turkey in turn is trying to obtain as much economic compensation and security guarantees as it can from Washington.

Both sides are "bluffing", in Mitchell's view: "With the Turks holding out for as much money as they can possibly get, and the US saying, 'If you don't allow us in, you stand to lose far more in terms of economic assistance and credits', it is a huge game of poker, isn't it?"

Copyright (c) 2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC 20036

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