Mostly Muslim Turkey Agrees to Send Troops to Aid Taliban Foes

Turkey on Thursday became the first predominantly Muslim country to commit troops to the war in Afghanistan, saying it would send about 90 elite soldiers in response to a U.S. request.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said it would be “unthinkable for Turkey to stand back in the war against terrorism” and that the troops would be sent to northern Afghanistan as soon as possible.

Ecevit emphasized that the troops’ primary role will be to help train forces of the Northern Alliance, the opposition coalition that is fighting the Taliban regime, as well as to offer humanitarian assistance. However, he did not rule out the possibility of Turkish troops seeing combat.

“Our hope is that Turkish soldiers take part [only] in training and humanitarian aid operations,” Ecevit said, but he added, “We may be faced with unknown and unwanted situations.”

Western military analysts say Turkey’s 15 years of experience fighting a Kurdish insurgency in the harsh mountainous terrain of southeastern Turkey and Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq could prove valuable against the Taliban.

Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said entry of the Turkish forces would send a “message to everyone this is not a war against Islam” but against terrorism.

In Islamabad, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, vowed to retaliate. “Any soldiers from any Muslim countries, or from non-Muslim countries, if they are joining with American soldiers, they are our enemy. We will strike back,” he told a news conference.

Turkey, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s only member country with a Muslim majority, opened its skies and bases to U.S. warplanes soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, saying it was fully behind the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.

Ecevit said Turkish troops will work in close coordination with U.S. and British forces, and he stressed that the anti-Taliban offensive will not stop during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in mid-November.

Turkey, which has close intelligence links with some Northern Alliance factions, says it will also help forge a broad-based Afghan administration in the event the Taliban falls.

Officially secular Turkey has refused to recognize the Taliban regime and is strongly opposed to the Taliban’s presence in any future Afghan government. It has traditionally backed Turkic-speaking minorities in northern Afghanistan. In the past, it has provided arms and training to ethnic Uzbeks led by Abdul Rashid Dostum, a Northern Alliance general who is fighting around the key city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

“Turkey’s military engagement will also bolster America’s image in the Muslim world--in that sense it is crucial,” said Hasan Koni, a political science lecturer at Ankara University and an advisor to Turkey’s National Security Council.

However, Turkey is disdained by the more fundamentally religious elements of the Northern Alliance and many other Muslims for its close ties to the United States and Israel and for repressing its own domestic Islamic movement.

Early signs of Turkey’s deepening military commitment came last month when the country’s coalition government, which includes parties of both the left and right wings, won parliamentary approval to deploy Turkish troops overseas.

Recent polls indicate, however, that a majority of Turks oppose involvement in military action in Afghanistan. Islamic politicians have led the chorus of protest, and there have been increasing calls from opposition parties for the government to resign.

“Every war is a quagmire, and Afghanistan is a complete quagmire. Turkey should not take part in this war,” said Husnu Ondul, chairman of the Turkish Human Rights Assn., echoing widespread views among rights groups.

But many Turkish policymakers say the war is a golden opportunity for Turkey to once again prove its value to the West as a pivot in dealing with the Balkans, the Middle East and oil-rich Turkic-speaking republics of ex-Soviet Central Asia.

“If Turkey plays its cards right, there could be multiple dividends,” said Dogu Ergil, who chairs a respected Ankara think tank called TOSAV.

The Bush administration signaled this week that it would keep up pressure on the International Monetary Fund to disburse about $9 billion in emergency loans that Turkey is seeking to help it out of a year-old economic crisis.

Some Turkish officials have gone so far as to predict that the European Union will now welcome Turkey, setting aside its long-running complaints about Turkey’s human rights record. Ecevit brushed aside speculation that Turkey was seeking such rewards for its actions. “The importance of the war against global terrorism is such that we could have never used our role as a bargaining chip for financial or other gains,” he said.