Turkish Lawmakers May Reconsider American Presence
By DEXTER FILKINS and JOEL BRINKLEY
nytimes.com
ANKARA, Turkey, March 2 — Under intense American pressure, a senior Turkish official indicated today that his government would ask Parliament a second time to allow American troops to use the country as a base against Iraq, a day after lawmakers here rejected such a plan.
Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said after a marathon meeting of senior officials that his government would take a resolution to Parliament later this week, after the government completes an assessment of the first vote.
"The process will be completed, and then it will come," Mr. Yakis said, referring to a new resolution.
He offered no details, but several Turkish officials said the government had spent much of the day debating whether to try again to secure Parliament's approval for bringing as many as 62,000 American troops into the country. On Saturday, Parliament rejected the measure by three votes.
The defeat shocked American officials, who had been assured by Turkish leaders that Parliament would pass the measure. The first indications that the Turkish officials might seek a new vote followed a telephone call today to the Turkish prime minister, Abdullah Gul, from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
A statement issued by Mr. Gul said the two men had agreed "to keep open the channels of communication."
The vote on Saturday was just one in a host of discouraging weekend developments for the Bush administration.
The Arab League, concluding a fractious conference for the leaders of 22 Arab nations, agreed on a final statement expressing "complete rejection of any aggression on Iraq" while also promising "refusal to participate in military action." The Arab leaders declined even to discuss an initiative from the United Arab Emirates calling for Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, to step down to spare the region from war.
In Paris today, Foreign Minister Dominque de Villepin issued a forceful new rejection of the resolution intended to authorize war that the United States and Britain have offered to the United Nations Security Council.
"Do we need a second resolution? No," he said. "Are we going to oppose a second resolution? Yes, as are the Russians and many other countries." Last week, the Russian foreign minister threatened to veto the resolution.
Thousands of anti-war protesters filled the streets in cities in Bosnia, Pakistan, Yemin, Morocco and Japan, among other places. Organizers said more large demonstrations were planned for next week. And Pope John Paul II dispatched a senior cardinal to Washington today with a letter for President Bush arguing against war, a Vatican spokesman said.
At the same time, Iraq began destroying its prohibited Al Samoud 2 missiles, crushing four of them with a bulldozer on Saturday and six more today. The regime also allowed United Nations weapons inspectors to interview a biological weapons scientist and a missile expert on Friday with no minder present and without a tape recorder, just as the inspectors had demanded. The United States and Britain disparaged the Iraqi actions, but they heartened the opponents of war. They continued to press their case.
"You cannot say, `I want Saddam to disarm,' and at the same time when he's disarming say, `They're not doing what they should,' " Mr. de Villepin said. France says it wants to disarm Iraq through prolonged inspections. Of the apparent rush to war, Mr. de Villepin added: "The timetable of diplomacy may not be the timetable of war. But you don't make war on a timetable."
Russia's foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, called his counterpart in Pakistan and lobbied him to vote against the British-American resolution and instead to support a second proposal to extend inspection into the summer.
Pakistan sits on the Security Council and is believed to support the American position, though on Friday it issued a statement saying it had not decided how to vote. And in Sofia, Bulgaria, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met today with Georgi Parvanov, the Bulgarian president, to discuss Iraq. Bulgaria is also a member of the Security Council and is believed to support the United States. After the meeting, Mr. Putin said he did not think he had changed Mr. Parvanov's mind.
And in Kuwait on Saturday, security officials arrested a Kuwaiti man with a mortar in his car who was trying to enter a hotel that is housing numerous United States and British military officials and press representatives. No further details were available, but many have predicted that an attack on Iraq would set off numerous attacks on western targets by Islamic fundamentalists.
As as the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, put it in an interview with CNN, "If you achieve victory, and there is someone occupying Baghdad, just imagine what the reaction could be in the Arab and Muslim world to that fact alone." The Bush administration has said it could maintain occupation forces in Iraq for up to two years.
President Bush, in his radio address on Saturday, reiterated his intention to bring democracy to Iraq, once Mr. Hussein is deposed.
"It will be difficult to help freedom take hold in a country that has known three decades of dictatorship, secret police, internal division and war," he said. "Yet the security of our nation and the hopes of millions depend on us, and Americans do not turn away from duties because they are hard."
Prince Saud was disparaging of that idea. An American occupation will bring chaos to Iraq, not democracy, he predicted.
"It's going to be a mess, I think," he said. "If you get chaos, how will democracy flower in Iraq?"
Not surprisingly, Mr. de Villepin said he shared that view.
"Some countries may think that with force in Iraq, you are going to get the end of terrorism, the end of proliferation in the world," he said, "and like magic you are going to make peace in the Middle East. We don't agree."
The Arab League, too, said it did not support the "regime change" idea.
"We are not concerned with the changes of regime," said Amr Moussa, the Arab League leader. "That is not our job."
Even Tony Blair, the British prime minister who is Mr. Bush's staunchest ally, distanced himself from the newly stated American goal of regime change in Baghdad. Referring to Mr. Hussein, he said: "Detestable as I find his regime, he could stay in power if he disarms peacefully."
Turkey's decision on Saturday came after a long, closed-door session of Parliament. The vote was close. In fact more people voted in favor of the American deployment than against it. But 19 people abstained, and under the Turkish rules a motion can pass only if it is supported by a majority of lawmakers present. With that test, the measure fell three votes short.
The United States had wanted to stage troops in Turkey that could attack Iraq from the north, opening a second front. In exchange, the United States had offered Turkey as much as $30 billion in grants, loans and loan guarantees and a role in determining the future of Kurdish areas in Northern Iraq.
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