Ankara
Turkey reversed course this week and decided not to send peacekeeping troops to Iraq. The Turkish Parliament, responding to U.S. pleas for help, last month approved the deployment of 10,000 soldiers. But intense opposition, both from the Turkish people and from the Iraqi Governing Council, prompted the turnaround. The Iraqis feared that Turkish troops would try to take over the northern part of Iraq, an area that was once part of the Ottoman Empire and is now home to a Kurdish insurgent movement that Turkey wants to suppress. The Iraqi Governing Council also expressed fears that the presence of Turkish troops might tempt other neighboring countries, like Iran and Syria, to intervene. “We said from the beginning that we were not too eager anyway,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
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