Turkish Leader: Bush Could Destroy UN With Attack on Iraq
By Charles A. Radin
Boston Globe Staff
Monday 27 January 2003
ANKARA, Turkey - Even more than usual, Turkey is being torn between the Middle East and the West, between modern secularism and Muslim traditionalism, by the prospective American attack on Iraq.
More than 80 percent of the population, and both major parties in Parliament, are opposed to following the United States into such a conflict. At the same time, Turks from the streets to the elites say current American efforts to enlist Turkish participation in an assault on Saddam Hussein could very well succeed.
''Against? Of course I'm against,'' said Huseyin Durmus, 46, who believes the looming conflict is the reason he has so few customers these days for the nuts, condiments, and grape paste and pistachio pastries he peddles in Ankara's scruffy Maltepe bazaar. ''But America is the boss. If they say start, we will start. We must. America doesn't give us this IMF money as a donation.''
More International Monetary Fund assistance for the limping economy, an easing of restrictions on Turkish purchases of military high technology, and a beefing up of Turkey's regional influence in the postwar era all could be available to Turkey if it engages in joint action with the United States against Iraq, diplomatic and political sources say.
Even with such incentives, the decision is momentous. Turkish participation would sour already tense relations with its Muslim neighbors. It would cause turmoil in the ruling Justice and Development Party, which has moderate Islamist roots. And as in the 1991 Gulf War, it would damage the economy.
Turkey's decision is also of great significance to the United States. Turkish participation would inoculate the United States against charges that it is a Christian nation making war on Muslims in a way that its alliances with the Persian Gulf monarchies does not. It would open the door to key ports and air bases and to Turkey's border with Iraq - enabling the opening of a northern front against Hussein that analysts say probably would shorten the conflict and save American lives.
The Turkish leadership is ''not looking to bail out on the United States,'' said a Western diplomat with firsthand knowledge of the negotiations. ''They see that some of their interests lie with the United States, but they have a tough set of factors to handle. It is hard for any government to get through Parliament something that 80 percent of its people oppose.''
Not that there is any great affection for Saddam Hussein here. From the bazaars of Ankara and Istanbul to the halls of government and the boardrooms of the major media, Turks say they agree with the United States that the Iraqi strongman is dangerous, and they would like to see him go.
But, they say, the United States has failed to make the case that the time for war has come, that it can protect Iraq and the region from chaos in the aftermath, and that Turkey's sick economy, one of the big losers after the 1991 Gulf War, will not be stricken again.
''At the end of the first Gulf War there were two big losers - one was Iraq and the other was Turkey,'' said Mehmet Dulger, of the ruling Justice and Development Party, who is chairman of the foreign relations committee of the Turkish Parliament. ''We are now in the position of an ill man in convalescence, and we are poised to lose again.''
Turkish political leaders are deeply concerned that the United States does not realize how difficult it will be to keep Iraq from disintegrating if it removes Hussein, who has used horrific force to keep his country's numerous ethnic groups under control.
''No one - including America - knows what kind of Iraq there will be after this war,'' said Cemal Kaya, a member of Parliament from the Republican People's Party, the leading opposition party. ''The Iraqi exile groups are not powerful, the Shi'a in the south are not organized. There are Armenians, Turkomen - only the Kurds are organized.
''So,'' he asked, ''what kind of Iraq can you make?''
Turkey is dead set against the rise of a Kurdish state. An estimated 15 million to 20 million of Turkey's approximately 70 million citizens are ethnically Kurdish, and a long, bloody battle between the state and Turkish separatist groups that sometimes resorted to terror tactics ended only a few years ago. Many Turks fear declaration of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq would reignite Kurdish nationalism in eastern Turkey, and they doubt the United States would be willing to stand by while Turkish forces made good on their country's announced intention to suppress such a state.
Like many Turks, Kaya, who represents the town of Agri in Turkey's far east, also doubts that the American government has pure motives for seeking to oust Hussein now. He believes a nondemocratic, strife-torn region serves vested interests that benefit from US military and economic dominance.
The ruling party ''does not have a choice,'' he said. ''Whether they like it or not, Turkey will be in this war. ... Look, 70 percent of Americans don't want this war, but they can't say no to the Texas oil companies.''
Many Turks who oppose the war readily acknowledge that their sentiment is more based on personal, economic considerations than on moral principle. There is broad consensus that the United States did not fulfill its economic commitments to Turkey after the 1991 Gulf War, and that the billions of dollars Turkey lost are a root cause of the country's economic malaise.
''Economic suffering is very much at the front of the collective mind,'' said a Western diplomat involved in discussions of Turkish participation in the prospective conflict. Estimates made after the 1991 war of $10 billion in losses, mostly from lost trade with Iraq and lost tourism, have ballooned to more than $100 billion.
That figure is exaggerated, the diplomat said, ''but it is not a myth that there were losses and that the losses were most acutely felt in the poorest and most sensitive sections of the country.''
Mustafa Kibaroglu, a specialist of biological and chemical weapons at Bilkent University and consultant to the Turkish military, said, ''We know there are hidden chemical and biological weapons in Iraq'' - in part because of direct contact with members of United Nations inspection teams who share information but say it is not their place to go public.
''We agree it would be good to destroy them. But the cost of disarming Saddam should not be allowed to outweigh the benefits. A destabilized Middle East is not good for the United States, Israel, or Turkey.''
Further, Turkish military leaders and strategists are concerned that the presence of a large number of American troops in northern Iraq would alter the situation of the Kurdish nationalists there - a situation that at present Turkey feels it has well in hand.
Turkish and American officials say there are no more than 2,000 to 3,000 Turkish troops in northern Iraq, but Kibaroglu and other Turkish observers who claim to have sources in the military say the number is more like 20,000 and could be doubled quickly, if necessary.
''The presence of US troops could very well tie the hands of the Turkish troops who control what the Kurds are doing there,'' Kibaroglu said. ''That is stepping on our blue suede shoes.''
On the other hand, Turkish analysts note that if the United States defeats Iraq without Turkish help, Turkey will lose all its leverage in northern Iraq. Indeed, they say this is one of the main reasons that Turkey will participate on the American side in the end regardless of public opinion.
Such political calculations, plus the desire of the Turkish military for American helicopters and tanks, and a genuine US-Turkish partnership against terrorism that began when Turkey was battling Kurdish separatists in the 1980s, are all elements of quiet discussions going on between the two countries outside the spotlights of public diplomacy and popular opinion.
''Our hesitancy is not over participating, but over the difficulty of the problems,'' said Dulger, the foreign relations committee chairman. The United States and Britain ''have conceived the game. Once the game is conceived, everyone has a role. We have a role, and we probably will play this role.''
Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com
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