Turkey: Aftermath

Date: 18/10/03

More fallout over Turkish troops in Iraq

THIS week's suicide-bomb attack outside the Turkish embassy in Baghdad gave millions of Turks a chilling preview of the welcome their troops might get if the government delivers on last week's promise to send them to help the Americans in Iraq. It also gave the country's prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, who persuaded parliament to authorise the dispatch of troops, a glimpse of the troubles he may face at home. Most Turks are against sending any soldiers across the border.

No Turks were killed; the Iraqi suicide bomber was the only victim. Yet members of Iraq's Governing Council, who view Turkey's motives with deep suspicion, were quick to seize on the bombing as proof that Turkish soldiers are sure to be attacked and should therefore stay out of their country.

Paul Bremer, the American in charge of Iraq, is said to have told his bosses at home that any help from Turkey may not be worth the trouble it will create, not least between the Americans and the council. The British quietly agree. But Paul Wolfowitz, America's deputy defence secretary, who favours bringing in up to 10,000 Turkish troops (their presence would let some Americans go home) is fighting back.

Mr Erdogan has shown no signs of backing down either. He insisted that the bomb attack was not aimed at Turkey, but was “an attempt to block positive developments in Iraq” that highlighted the need for a common front against terrorism. Yet for all his bravado and continuing popularity, Mr Erdogan is feeling squeezed.

The main reason that he ignored public opinion and persuaded most of his ruling Justice and Development Party to vote in favour of letting the government send Turkish soldiers to Iraq for a year was that he wanted to mend fences with America. Relations soured last March, when Turkey's parliament refused to let American troops cross its territory to open a northern front against Saddam Hussein.

Mr Erdogan's second argument, supported by several of Turkey's generals, is that the presence of Turkish troops would deter the Iraqi Kurds from breaking away to form an independent state. Any such step would inflame separatist passions among Turkey's 14m or so Kurds. It could also force the Americans to move against the 5,000-odd members of Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who are ensconced in the mountains of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

Yet millions of pious voters, who helped propel Mr Erdogan's party to power last year, remain unswayed. “What kind of Muslim orders his people to lose their lives fighting fellow Muslims, just to save American ones?” fumes an Ankara kebab-vendor.

Unfortunately, should Mr Bremer's apparent view prevail and Turkish troops be asked to stay away, relations with the Americans could get worse. The fear of some Turks (including many in the army) that America is secretly backing the establishment of a Kurdish homeland would increase. America's reluctance to disarm and kick out the PKK, on the grounds that this would destabilise one of the few relatively calm bits of Iraq, has fed these worries.

Not everybody is so gloomy. “We will have made our gesture to the Americans and come away without paying the price,” says Emin Sirin, who is the only representative of the tiny Liberal Democratic Party in the parliament. “It will be a win-win situation for the government and the Turkish people.”