Turkey's parliament voted Thursday to allow the United States to start renovating military bases and ports for a possible Iraq war, a first step toward opening the way for U.S. combat troops.
The vote came after Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said Turkey had no choice but to back Washington in an Iraq war. The vote was 308-193 with 9 abstentions.
Gul told senior newspaper columnists late Wednesday that a second vote on whether to allow U.S. combat troops in Turkey would take place on Feb. 18, after a nine daylong recess for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. A senior party official confirmed the date and said he expected that vote to pass easily.
"The permission we want to get from the parliament today is to prepare some of our ports in case we are compelled in the end and there is a war outside our will," Gul said before the balloting. "We have to prepare ourselves for the worst case scenario," he added.
Gul stressed his country's armed forces would not fight in a possible U.S. -led war against Iraq, adding that his government is still working for a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi crisis.
Before the vote, Iraq's ambassador to Turkey said that if Ankara opened its military bases to the United States for a war on Iraq it would be committing a "great crime" and effectively joining the war.
"Countries that participate in that way should know that they commit a great crime and will see that they made a strategic mistake, because Iraq has never shown them enmity or done them damage," Ambassador Talib Abid Salih El Dileyimi told reporters. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
