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Turkey builds up military forces along border with Iraq
Uncertainty on nation's role in possible war
ByStephan Faris, Chronicle Foreign Service

Saturday, December 28, 2002

Silopi, Turkey -- For days, Turkish military trucks rumbled through the broad, icy streets of this town on the Iraqi border. Some held troops, tanks or anti-aircraft guns. Others carried military vehicles cloaked in army-green tarps. The convoys were so frequent, locals say, that they held up traffic on the highways.

"There were hundreds of trucks, thousands of troops," said Eyup Tanis, who leads the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party, the most popular party in Silopi.

The buildup occurred as pressure mounts on Turkey to decide what role it will play in any United States attack on Iraq. Local media have reported that Washington has asked Turkey, the only member of NATO that shares a border with Iraq, for permission to station up to 80,000 soldiers in Diyarbakir province, not far from the Iraqi border.

Turkey agreed on Wednesday to a six-month extension allowing U.S. warplanes to use its Incirlik air base to patrol the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, but Prime Minister Abdullah Gul has insisted that no decision has been made on any further participation in an attempt to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

While Turkey's government debates whether this Muslim country will join an attack against another Muslim nation, the civilian population and military forces near the Iraqi border are already preparing for war.

"If there will be a war, all of us will die," said Sinan Turker, 16, a hotel worker in Sirnak, the snow-choked capital of the province of the same name. "We are the closest to Saddam."

Turker said his family is digging a bomb shelter in the frozen ground of their home in a nearby village, a little room just 6 feet high but big enough for his immediate family.

The people in this region are no strangers to war. The buildup to the 1991 Gulf War brought panic. Many sold their homes and businesses and fled west. Then, as the war ended, hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly Iraqi Kurds trying to escape as Hussein's forces reoccupied northern Iraq, streamed across the mountains and into southeastern Turkey.

The area also suffered through Turkey's 15-year war against Kurdish separatists. Until late last month, the province was under emergency rule, with military checkpoints along all major roads, often at 20-mile intervals.

Many of Sirnak's homeowners already have bomb shelters, which were added after a battle between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish military destroyed dozens of buildings. Abdulaziz Birlik, the head of the Sirnak branch of the Red Crescent, is one of these. Like most of his neighbors, he has also sealed his windows with plastic.

"This is for chemical weapons," he said.

ECONOMIC WORRIES

For many, however, the more pressing worry is the economy. Turkey is suffering through its worst recession since World War II, and the southeast has been especially hard hit. Ankara incurred up to $40 billion in losses as a result of the Gulf War, in which it allowed the United States to use its bases for air attacks.

"When people talk about the war, all the house prices drop," said Omer Faruk Tas, vice president of the Southeastern Anatolian Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association.

Tas fears that a war will stop trade altogether and that other Muslim countries will boycott Turkish goods if his nation joins a U.S.-led war against Iraq.

Traffic from Turkey into Iraq has already slackened, according to Resul Celik, the deputy governor in charge of the Habur border crossing near Silopi. A month ago, 1,500 commercial trucks traveled into or out of Iraq every day, bringing in United Nations-approved goods and carrying out oil.

Now, the number is closer to 800, said Celik. He attributed the drop to the reluctance of Turkish oil companies to strike deals with the Iraqi government, fearing it may not be around long enough to pay the bills.

FEAR OF STARVATION

If border traffic grinds to a halt, said Halil Oral, 48, a truck driver waiting for customs to clear his return into Turkey, the result would be "starvation."

"Thousands of families depend on this border," Oral said.

While local people want the borders open, the government worries that a new Gulf War will bring a new tide of refugees streaming across.

Military and local sources have told Reuters news agency that Turkey has deployed between 10,000 and 15,000 troops on its side of the border, ready to move if needed to block the refugees.

Turkey's army denied any large-scale troop movement, as did the governor of nearby Diyarbakir province, A. Cemil Serhadli. But he acknowledged some soldiers are on the move.

"It's true that there have been some who crossed over to Iraq," Serhadli said. "The military forces are in northern Iraq to control the area against the terrorist (Kurdish) forces. Now there's no need to stay there anymore. But they're there because of the war."

If the war sparks another exodus from northern Iraq, the troops will be used to keep the sea of refugees from crossing into Turkey, Serhadli said.

The Turkish military has long maintained a presence inside the Iraqi border, said Safeen Dizayee, head of the delegation to Turkey of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of two Kurdish groups that control northern Iraq. He put the current strength at several hundred soldiers within about 3 miles of the border.

Turkey fears that if Hussein is ousted, Iraq's 3.5 million Kurds could take advantage of the ensuing chaos to form an independent Kurdish state in the north, an area that has been semi-autonomous since the United States and Britain imposed a no-fly zone there after the Gulf War.

More important, it fears that an independent Kurdistan would spark a renewed drive for independence by its own Kurdish population, who constitute more than 10 million of its 68 million citizens. Turkish Kurds waged a war for independence from 1984 to 1999 that was brutally suppressed by the government, leaving 37,000 dead.

But Dizayee insists that there will be no exodus of Iraqi Kurds in a new Gulf War and that, in any event, the virtual elimination of Turkey's Kurdish rebels has made an influx of Turkish troops to his country unnecessary.

"Whatever the situation, we don't feel a unilateral move (across the border) would help the situation," Dizayee said. "In fact, it would probably complicate it."

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