Turkey Rebuffs Iraq Demand to Halt ‘No-Fly’ Patrols From Southern Base

Hoping to drive a wedge between the United States and a key ally, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz instead came away empty-handed from a much-heralded meeting here Monday with Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.

Emerging from nearly three hours of talks with the new leftist premier, Aziz said, “We discussed our legitimate concerns in a friendly manner.” In a predictable swipe at the United States, he added that “we have to deal with our bilateral relations in a direct, straightforward manner, and we shall not let foreigners to interfere in those relations.”

But even as the Iraqi official was meeting with Ecevit, U.S. warplanes stationed at a NATO base in southern Turkey attacked air defenses in northern Iraq. And shortly after, Ecevit justified the attacks, saying they had been carried out in “self-defense.” It was the first time Ecevit has publicly condoned U.S. action against Iraq.

U.S. planes also attacked sites in Iraq’s southern “no-fly” zone Monday. Iraq said five civilians were killed and 22 were injured in those attacks, but there was no U.S. confirmation of those figures.

A senior Turkish official close to Monday’s talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Aziz had demanded that Ecevit scrap the mandate under which U.S. and British warplanes stationed at Incirlik Air Base patrol the skies over Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. The so-called Kurdish “safe haven” there was established at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War in the aftermath of the Kurds’ failed rebellion against Baghdad.

The official said Aziz had asked Ecevit to resume trade with Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions on his country.

“The answer he got was a big no,” the official said.

Instead, the official said, Ecevit “lectured” Aziz on Iraq’s obligation to comply with U.N. resolutions concerning its weapons of mass destruction programs if his country wants to be reintegrated into the international community.

Ecevit himself said, “I told Aziz that the easing of sanctions on Iraq must run parallel to compliance with U.N. resolutions.” He said he also told Aziz that Iraq should stop threatening its neighbors and “introduce democracy and respect the human rights of its own citizens.”

Finally, Ecevit handed Aziz a thick file compiled by the Turkish armed forces containing evidence of Iraqi government support for Turkish rebel Kurds of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party. The Kurdish group has been waging a 14-year campaign for self-rule in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeastern region. Ecevit told reporters that Aziz had denied the charges and had invited Turkish officers to Iraq “to come and check the facts for themselves.”

A senior U.S. official here, who asked not to be identified, said: “I can’t imagine Mr. Aziz is going back a happy man. In terms of concrete results, the Iraqis do not have anything further as a result of this visit than they did a week ago.”

Yet many analysts agree that Aziz had good reasons to be hopeful about the outcome of his meeting with Ecevit, which took place at Baghdad’s request. As one European diplomat put it, the prime minister is “congenitally anti-American” and has been a longtime critic of U.S. policy on Iraq. While a member of the political opposition, he persistently called for removing the U.S.-led air contingent from Turkey.

Turkey is deeply worried that Washington’s policy of encouraging continued Kurdish self-rule in northern Iraq in order to “contain” Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could result in the establishment of an independent Kurdish state there, and that this would, in turn, fuel separatist sentiment among its own restive Kurdish population.

Commenting on Aziz’s visit, Alan Makovsky, a Turkey expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said: “Turkey wants to keep its line of communications open to a regime with which it shares interests regarding the Kurds and with which it must share a neighborhood if the next twist in Washington’s Iraq policy leaves it exposed.”

Yet many Turkish officials question the wisdom of hosting Aziz at a time when Turkey finds itself increasingly isolated.