Turkish leaders tells Cheney no Afghan help for now
AFP —
Turkey’s leaders told U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney Monday that their campaign against Iraq-based Kurdish rebels means they cannot, for now, send more money or troops to Afghanistan, officials said.
“They were certainly, I think, happy to look at, to see whether there was any possibility of more they could do but offered no immediate short-term commitments,” a senior U.S. official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
He spoke after Cheney, in Ankara on the last leg of a nine-day overseas tour, met with President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and chief of general staff, General Yasar Buyukanit.
Washington has been pushing its NATO allies, including Turkey, to step up help to rebuild war-wracked Afghanistan and crush the Taliban Islamist militia ahead of an alliance summit in Bucharest, Romania, in early April.
Last week, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said Ankara will soon decide whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, a day after Buyukanit opposed the idea, saying that his forces were already busy fighting separatist fighters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“We give importance to security in Afghanistan and, as a NATO ally, we abide by NATO decisions. We can obey these decisions as long as they do not weaken our own struggle against terrorism,” a Turkish official said in Ankara.
“A decision will be made based on these three factors,” added the official, who also requested anonymity.
The Anatolia news agency reported that Cheney had made no direct request for extra troops. The anonymous U.S. official, however, said Cheney had “made a strong case” for increased commitments to Afghanistan.
Cheney, who later flew to Istanbul, came to Turkey after surprise stops in Iraq and Afghanistan and scheduled visits to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the West Bank.
The US vice president, who met March 18 with Kurdistan regional president Massoud Barzani in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil, reported to Turkish leaders that the Kurdish leader hoped to cooperate against the PKK, the U.S. official said.
Barzani had told Cheney through an interpreter that he hoped to be “part of the solution, and not part of the problem” of Iraq’s relations with its neighbors—notably Turkey, which has struck at PKK targets inside Iraq.
Amid Iraqi Kurd anger over the attacks, the U.S. official said Cheney and his Turkish hosts had discussed the need to fight the PKK while being “sensitive” to the “existing stresses on the Iraqi political balance.”
Last month, Turkish troops stormed into neighboring northern Iraq to hunt down PKK rebels for a week-long ground incursion that Baghdad condemned as a violation of its sovereignty.
“All the Turks he met agree that Turkey needs to work—not only with the Iraqi central government—but they need to work with political forces and political leaders in northern Iraq as well,” the official said.
“They want to work cooperatively against the PKK. The vice president expressed appreciation for that and said that we would be fully supportive of trying to continue and enhance that cooperation,” the official said.
Washington, which like much of the international community considers the PKK a terrorist organisation, provides Turkey with intelligence on rebel movements but was nonetheless wary that Turkish military action could destabilize the most stable, relatively calm part of Iraq.
“Both sides agreed that protecting Iraq’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and political unity was of common interest to both Turkey and the United States,” the anonymous Turkish official said.
The Turkish army said earlier this month it may conduct more strikes against PKK militants, who have waged a bloody campaign since 1984 for self-rule in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast.
Turkey has twice taken the helm of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and increased the number of its troops based in Kabul to 1,150 last year.
Cheney arrived in Ankara to minor protests against U.S. policies in the Middle East, including dozens of demonstrators near the gates of Gul’s official compound who chanted anti-U.S. and anti-government slogans.
Watched by riot police, the protesters burned an effigy of Cheney, the NTV news channel reported.
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adaydream
If we stopped the Turks from killing U. S. Citizens by Occupation in Iraq, then they'd have troops to send to Afghanistan?
Gosh that sounds like the U. S. and Iraq needs to tell Turkey to leave our citizens alone.
Sounds like Iraq needs to get some Iraqi fighters up to the northern borders and stop the chaos.
Well, that's where it stops. Iraq won't get off it's butt and do anything they need to do.
No singing and flowers at our feet. No WMD. No Iraqi people standing up and controlling their own destiny. No Hazardous Chemical Plants. No peace after 5 years. No re-building of the country that we bombed, destroyed virtually everything standing to speak of after 5 years. No sustainable electricity in the cities. No sustainable water supplies in the cities.
Sounds like a lot of things not going as planned.
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SuperLib
I was actually surprised to learn that Turkey has so many troops already in Afghanistan and that they've had some leadership positions. I guess you learn something new every day. For those that don't, there's always the cut & paste options. :)
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Zaphod
Turkey only has a token contingent in Afghanistan, and the idea that the islamist-leaning Turkish government would actually seriously consider to help against the Taliban -- their Sunni soul brothers -- is laughable. It does show how seriously deluded the Bush government is about the nature of the islamic threat.
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