Here's what's going on in Turkey: Turks shower U.S. soldiers with eggs, stones (These young people risking their lives are scorned, and it's Bush's fault.)
alertnet.org
SILOPI, Turkey, March 29 (Reuters) - Turkish villagers showered U.S. soldiers with eggs and stones on Saturday when they arrived to recover pieces of a Tomahawk cruise missile which came down in eastern Turkey on Friday.
Scores of people in Urfa province set upon four jeeps carrying some 10 American soldiers, breaking windows and shouting slogans against the U.S.-led war in neighbouring Iraq, Anatolian news agency reported.
Turkish gendarmes later intervened to break up the demonstration. There were no initial reports of injuries.
Sukru Kocatepe, governor of Urfa province, told Reuters on Friday a Tomahawk cruise missile, launched from U.S. navy ships in the Mediterranean, had fallen in the sparsely populated area gouging a deep hole but without exploding.
It was believed to be the third U.S. missile to land in Turkey since the Iraq war began. Two Tomahawks misfired and landed in Turkey last Sunday, a U.S. defence official said.
Some 90 percent of Turks are against the war and the people of the impoverished east, fearing further falls in living standards, say they have much to lose from the conflict.
Turkey opened its air space to U.S. military aircraft and missiles after parliament rejected Washington's request to station up to 62,000 troops along its southern border with Iraq to open a second front against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Anatolian said the U.S. soldiers handed about $3,600 in cash to five villagers to meet the damage the missile had caused to their crops. U.S. officials were not immediately available to confirm the report.
"This amount of money does not cover the damage we have suffered but we accepted it to close the episode," local government official Mehmet Yilmaz told the agency.
Turkey's National Security Council, a powerful body of military and civilian leaders, on Friday called on the United States to end its war on Iraq quickly and to prevent further civilian casualties there. |
