[lbo-talk] No Turkish troops

[joanna bujes]

Also on Friday, Turkey decided not to deploy 10,000 troops to its 
southern neighbor. Washington had been pressuring Turkey for months to 
send what would have been the first contingent of troops from a Muslim 
country, but the move faced strong resistance from the Iraqi Governing 
Council.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah 
Gul agreed in a phone conversation Thursday night that the offer of 
Turkish troops would be withdrawn. "Obviously, we would have preferred 
if this all worked out very nicely to everybody's satisfaction, but 
let's remember that the goal is stability in Iraq," State Department 
spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.

Iraqis were worried that Turkey wanted to dominate oil-rich northern 
Iraq and that the presence of Turkish troops would cause friction with 
Iraq's Kurdish minority. A 15-year insurgency by Kurdish rebels in 
Turkey ended in 1999, but the rebels still have bases in northern Iraq 
and the potential to resume fighting. The Kurds intensely lobbied the 
Governing Council to reject any Turkish deployment.

(SF Chronicle)