(Fwd) US troops attack Turkish base inside Iraq!

Tue Jul 8 18:55:30 CEST 2003

US is pushing its allies further aside....

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    By Ayla Jean Yackley
     ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on 
Saturday that NATO ally the United States had seized Turkish special forces 
in Iraq in what he called an "ugly incident," and demanded their immediate 
release.
     The arrests threaten to exacerbate tensions between the two NATO allies, 
a relationship already strained after Ankara's refusal to allow U.S. troops 
to stage attacks on Iraq from Turkish soil during the U.S.-led war.
     Turkey's Foreign Ministry said 11 Turkish soldiers based in northern 
Iraq had been detained by U.S. forces on Friday afternoon. Ankara had made 
"forceful representations" to Washington, a government source said.
     "We demanded their immediate release. They (U.S. officials) said they 
are safe," Erdogan told reporters. "It's a totally ugly incident, it's 
something that shouldn't have happened."
     The mass-circulation Hurriyet newspaper said around 100 U.S. troops 
raided a facility used by the Turks in Sulaimaniya, Iraq, and transferred the 
officers to the city of Kirkuk.
     The soldiers were accused of planning an attack on the Kurdish governor 
in Kirkuk, Hurriyet said, but Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul dismissed that 
charge as "nonsense."
     "None of it is believable. Turkey is working for Iraq's stability, not 
to destabilize Iraq," Gul was quoted as saying by the state-run Anatolian 
news agency.

     RELATIONSHIP TESTED
     Muslim Turkey's military has enjoyed close ties with the United States, 
but relations soured after parliament voted against the deployment of 
thousands of U.S. forces here to launch another front against Iraq in March.
     In Ankara, a small group of protesters marched outside the U.S. Embassy 
on Saturday, accusing Washington of taking "hostages" and shouting, "Murderer 
USA, get out of the Middle East."
     The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Gul had "intervened in the matter" by 
telephoning Secretary of State Colin Powell. The chief of Turkey's general 
staff, Hilmi Ozkok, spoke about the issue with NATO commander General James 
Jones, it added.
     "We're trying to get this resolved as soon as we can," Robert Deutch, 
deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, told reporters after meeting 
Foreign Ministry officials.
     In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman confirmed Powell had 
spoken by telephone with Gul.
     Gul said Ankara has sent a delegation that included military officers to 
Sulaimaniya to resolve the stand-off.
     A few thousand Turkish troops are inside northern Iraq in pursuit of 
Turkish Kurdish guerrillas who waged a separatist campaign in the 1980s and 
1990s in southeastern Turkey. Turkish peacekeepers also remain in the region, 
there since a 1996 cease-fire was signed by rival Kurdish factions.
     U.S.-backed Kurdish leaders who have run the region since the end of the 
1991 Gulf war have urged Turkey to withdraw all of its troops from the north.
     But Turkey considers northern Iraq part of its sphere of influence and 
has long expressed fears that Kurds in northern Iraq might try to create an 
independent state. Ankara says this could reignite the separatist Kurdish 
rebellion, which resulted in more than 30,000 deaths over two decades.
     One Turkish soldier and three Kurdish guerrillas were killed in clashes 
in southeastern Turkey on Friday and Saturday, officials said. Authorities 
say several hundred militants have returned to southeastern Turkey since the 
Iraq war.
     "We cannot understand the Americans' aims," deputy armed forces chief 
Yasar Buyukanit was quoted as saying. "This action by our ally of 50 years 
has deeply saddened and shaken us."

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