U.S. Courts New Turkish Leaders for Access to Bases and Airspace

LONDON -- The Bush administration, seeking to gain support for a potential attack on Iraq, is courting a new Turkish government with talk of diplomatic, economic and military aid -- and the promise that a strong military coalition is the surest means of averting war.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, in London on Monday on the first in a series of visits to potential allies, will court European nations as well as Turkey, whose military bases offered enormous advantages to the U.S.-led coalition in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

With Baghdad facing a Sunday deadline to declare any weapons of mass destruction, the No. 2 Pentagon official told a British audience that the best hope of averting war in Iraq lies in amassing a formidable military force including Turkey that would force President Saddam Hussein to abide by United Nations demands.

Pentagon planners are weighing alternative invasion strategies, with and without the use of Turkish bases and overflight rights now used to patrol the “no-fly” zone in northern Iraq.

A war would be quicker and less painful for Turkey if U.S. and allied forces could attack Iraq from the north as well as from southern bases in Qatar, Kuwait and possibly Saudi Arabia, military officials say.

Today, a senior administration official said, Wolfowitz will begin a conversation with Turkey’s new government -- an administration with Islamic roots that took office Thursday -- by outlining an alluring message: The United States will oppose an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq; it could protect Turkey from Iraq with Patriot antimissile batteries as it did in 1991; and it might consider making smallpox vaccine available in the event of a biological attack.

The administration would offer as yet unspecified economic aid to help Turkey turn around its depressed economy through new access to Iraq, which would probably be free of sanctions if Hussein fell.

Describing Turkey’s democratic government as a potential “model for the Muslim world,” Wolfowitz made the case for Turkey’s most cherished immediate goal by aggressively backing the nation’s bid to join the European Union.

The United States seeks basing and overfly rights, as well as help in transporting military materiel, another senior administration official said, but is not seeking troops or other direct military support from Turkey.

In exchange, the Turks must choose quickly, but the first senior administration official said Wolfowitz will not insist on immediate support from Ankara.

“We need to be realistic,” the official said. “On the other hand, our message to them is: ‘You need to be realistic about us. We’re developing military plans which have a certain momentum of their own. It’s not possible to keep all your options open down to the last minute.’ We really do need to get some decisions from Turkey -- sooner rather than later.”

The answer is likely to be affirmative, diplomatic officials say. The United States has been a staunch ally of Turkey’s for years, and has pleaded Ankara’s case before the European Union since 1997.

When Turkey jailed opposition leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 1999 on charges of inciting religious hatred, U.S. officials argued that he was inappropriately imprisoned for exercising free speech.

Erdogan is now the leader of the governing Justice and Development Party, although the conviction has left him barred from becoming prime minister. The United States also successfully lobbied the International Monetary Fund to give Turkey $31.5 billion in aid.