Turkey backs U.S. military deployment

ANKARA, Turkey -- President Bush is right to send ground forces to the Persian Gulf to pressure Iraq into disarming, but Turkey is wary about hosting a large number of U.S. troops, the foreign minister said Friday.

Turkey is a leading U.S. ally in the Middle East but its people overwhelmingly oppose war in Iraq. The government has repeatedly balked at U.S. requests to deploy thousands of U.S. troops in Turkey for a possible invasion of neighboring Iraq.

"The United States is our ally but there might be issues on which the interests of allies do not meet," Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis told NTV television. "It would not suit us. Then, Turkey would become a country opening a front against its neighbor."

About 50 U.S. warplanes fly regular patrols over northern Iraq from Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, where 1,500 U.S. soldiers are based. Support from Turkey is considered key to any U.S. operation against Iraq.

Using Turkish bases for a ground attack would give the United States the ability to attack from both the north and the south, surrounding central Iraq, Saddam Hussein's heartland of support.

Yakis did not outright reject a possible troop deployment.

"Such a decision should be taken in the broadest consensus with public, parliament and non-governmental organizations," he said. "The opposition is obvious but it is not clear what can be accepted."

The government earlier said that it would make a decision on a troop deployment after U.N. inspectors checking Iraq for weapons of mass destruction release their report in late January.

Still, Yakis said he supported U.S. troop deployment in the Middle East. Washington has already deployed thousands of troops to the region.

"You can't tell Iraq 'disarm or else' from a distance," Yakis said. The United States "is doing the right thing by narrowing the circle around it ... and showing that there is no place to escape."

Yakis' Justice and Development Party took office after November elections and is extremely sensitive to the anti-war sentiment.

The party is conservative, and its core constituency is pro-Islamic and strongly opposed to military action against fellow Muslims. Turkey also fears that a war would harm its fragile economic recovery and would lead to instability on its border.

Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul is scheduled to visit Syria, Egypt and Jordan beginning Saturday, in part show that he is doing all he can to avoid a war.

State Minister Kursad Tuzmen is expected to visit Baghdad next week on a similar mission.

Turkey was a staging area for attacks against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and Washington is pressing for an answer on the use of Turkish bases so it can upgrade facilities that it would use.