Print This Page Email This Page See Most Sent

• EXCLUSIVE: Secret Exile Plan for Saddam? • Marines Get Warm Welcome in Iraqi Town • How Do You Feel About the War?

— By Ferit Demir

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey on Saturday denied reports it had sent over 1,000 troops into northern Iraq as part of its plans to control war refugees and prevent any "terrorist activity."

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Friday Turkey would send troops into northern Iraq to protect national interests but gave no timetable. Hours later military sources said a small vanguard force of commandos had crossed the border.

"The reports are not true," a Turkish armed forces spokesman said by telephone of reports carried independently by television stations, newspapers and news agencies.

Iraqi Kurds also denied any Turkish commandos had crossed.

"I can confirm to you that no (new) Turkish troops so far have entered or been deployed into our areas," senior Iraqi Kurdish official Hoshyar Zebari told a news conference in Arbil, northern Iraq.

The United States, now fighting the third day of a war in Iraq, has urged Turkey not to send any troops unilaterally into northern Iraq. It fears confrontation between Turkish troops and Kurdish groups Ankara suspects of ambitions to establish their own independent state.

Turkey fears a Kurdish state would reignite armed Kurdish separatism in southeastern Turkey that cost 30,000 lives in the 1980s and 1990s. Iraqi Kurdish groups, for their part, fear Turkey might move to crush the autonomy they have enjoyed since the area passed beyond Baghdad's control in 1991.

Small numbers of Turkish troops have been in northern Iraq since the 1990s, operating against rebel Turkish Kurds who have retreated there. The troops have co-existed uneasily with Iraqi Kurdish groups governing the area since the 1991 Gulf war.

Turkey agreed on Friday, as U.S. and British troops pressed north toward Baghdad and unleashed a fierce bombing campaign on the Iraqi capital, to allow U.S. warplanes to overfly Turkish territory in attacks on Iraq. But it resisted U.S. demands to refrain from sending extra troops into Iraq.

A U.S. official said on Saturday Turkish air space now appeared to be open to overflights, but he was not aware of any U.S. aircraft having yet used the corridor to Iraq.

The United States sees an attack from the north on Iraqi forces as a way of relieving the burden on an invasion force now pressing up from the south toward Baghdad.

It fears a "war within a war" -- clashes between Turkish troops and local Kurds could disrupt the U.S.-led campaign.

U.S. DISPLEASURE

Turkey has spoken of staying within a "buffer zone" reaching some 20 km (12 miles) into northern Iraq, but said it could go deeper if its national interests were threatened.

Gul announced late on Friday that Turkish troops would cross into Iraq to keep any refugees in camps in Iraq and prevent them spilling over into Turkey.

Gul also said Turkey had suffered from the activity of Turkish Kurdish rebels based in the north since the region went beyond Baghdad's control after the 1991 Gulf War.

"Turkish troops will go," he said. "A vacuum was formed in northern Iraq and that vacuum became practically a camp for terrorist activity. This time we do not want such a vacuum."

In Washington, a U.S. official said the United States had not agreed to a Turkish move into northern Iraq.

But sensitive talks were continuing between the United States and Turkey on the terms for any Turkish deployment.

"We know the Turks think that it's necessary to use the military to establish a humanitarian corridor in the north but frankly we don't agree," he said.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said in Berlin that Germany would withdraw its air crew aboard NATO AWACS surveillance planes patrolling air space over Turkey if Ankara became a belligerent force in northern Iraq.

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon followed a similar line, but suggested limited Turkish deployment may be accepted.

He told a London briefing he was "relaxed" about what he called a limited incursion of Turkish troops into Iraq, saying it constituted only a border policing operation.

(Additional reporting by Jon Hemming in Zakho, Iraq and Daren Butler in Silopi, Turkey)

photo credit and caption:

Turkish army mobile heavy artillery is seen in a camp near the border with Iraq March 21, 2003. Turkey delayed opening airspace to U.S. aircraft as war raged in neighboring Iraq on Friday, demanding close control of overflights and greater freedom to dispatch its own troops over the border, sources said. Turkish troops entering northern Iraq is viewed with deep reservations both by the U.S. and Kurdish groups in the area. Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

Copyright 2003 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.