Angry Over Bosnia, Turks May Halt Use of Air Base

Turkey will probably refuse to permit the continued use of a Turkish air base for bombing Iraq unless the world community does something to stop the bloodshed in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Turkish President Turgut Ozal said Wednesday.

Ozal, a staunch member of the U.S.-assembled Persian Gulf War coalition, said that the failure of the United Nations to stop Serbian aggression against Bosnian Muslims has caused growing anger in Turkey, where the population is overwhelmingly Muslim.

His comments, in a speech at the Brookings Institution, dramatized the hostility in much of the Muslim world to the timid approach of the West to the Yugoslav conflict. The Balkan crisis now seems sure to produce the first serious test of the foreign policy of the week-old Clinton Administration.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher has ordered a rush review of American policy and a careful analysis of all conceivable measures, including use of air power to ground Serbian warplanes and suppress Serbian artillery and the relaxation of the U.N.-ordered arms embargo against the Bosnian government.

“It is a top priority,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. “I’m not going to go into specifics on the review, but there are people looking at all kinds of different options.”

Western nations have been reluctant to intervene militarily in the conflict because they see it as a potential quagmire in which military objectives would be difficult or impossible to achieve, especially at an acceptable cost in terms of casualties.

Ozal said the Turkish government is unlikely to renew American permission to use Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey when the current agreement expires in June unless “the U.N. and the world community does something in Bosnia.”

American and allied planes use Incirlik to launch patrols into the northern Iraq “no-fly zone,” intended to protect Iraqi Kurds from repression by the Baghdad government. A similar zone in southern Iraq, intended to protect Shiite Muslims, is patrolled by Navy warplanes from aircraft carriers.

Ozal called on the American government to send weapons to the Muslim-led Bosnian government and to use air power to balance Serbian military superiority. He said there is no need for outside ground troops.

Ozal said the Turkish public cannot understand why the United States and its allies are punishing Iraq for violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions while failing to stop Serbia from defying other council resolutions intended to stop the brutal practice of “ethnic cleansing,” the Serbs’ ejection of non-Serbs from Serbian-controlled areas.

“There is a no-fly zone in Bosnia that has not been implemented,” he said. “Why this double standard? This way the situation is becoming difficult for my country.”

It is almost inconceivable, he said, that the Bosnia peace talks now going on in Geneva will succeed. “Peace can only be reached if there is equality in the war, if there is a stalemate in the war,” he said. “I don’t imagine they will ever reach agreement.”

In its final two months in office, the Bush Administration edged closer to intervention but only under U.N. auspices. Then-Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger urged European nations to reconsider the arms embargo against Bosnia but admitted that he ran into a “brick wall.” The Bush Administration also urged the Security Council to authorize military enforcement of the no-fly zone in Bosnia, but other council members declined to go along.

Christopher also supports enforcement of the no-fly zone and has said that it is time to consider lifting the arms embargo.