Germany May Join NATO Force on Turkey-Iraq Border

Germany is likely to agree early in January to Turkey’s request that it join a NATO multinational rapid deployment force near the Turkish-Iraqi border, potentially bringing the German military into the Persian Gulf conflict, NATO and German sources said.

German, Belgian and Italian officers were in Ankara on Friday to discuss the Turkish request for 42 warplanes from the Allied Command Europe’s Mobile Force. Turkish President Turgut Ozal wants the NATO warplanes and about 500 men as a deterrent against an Iraqi attack. Turkey is the only NATO nation to share a border with Iraq.

Germany has thus far declined to send troops to the gulf, citing what Chancellor Helmut Kohl calls a constitutional ban on the German military getting involved in conflicts outside North Atlantic Treaty Organization territory.

The NATO force requested by Turkey would be based at Erhac air base, about 300 miles from the Iraqi border, and under a NATO plan developed decades ago would consist of 18 fighter planes each from Germany and Belgium and six from Italy.

If Bonn approves the Turkish request, Germany would send 18 Alpha Jet ground attack aircraft and supporting technicians to Turkey, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

The action, if approved, would be the first significant deployment of military forces by the government in Bonn outside the country since West Germany joined NATO in the mid-1950s.