ANKARA, Turkey — The Bush administration told Turkish leaders Friday that it had all but given up on their country as a base from which to assault Iraq, ending months of intense lobbying for the deployment of tens of thousands of American troops to a northern front against Saddam Hussein, a senior U.S. official said.
Instead, the official said, the administration is now trying to dissuade Turkey from plans to send its own army into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, warning that such an incursion could lead to "a war within a war" and further damage Turkey's relations with the United States.
The shift in the administration's position came nearly two weeks after Turkey's parliament refused to authorize a deployment of 62,000 American troops and after its top political leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, balked at a backup proposal to open Turkish airspace to U.S. missiles and warplanes for a bombing campaign in Iraq.
In response, the Pentagon on Friday sent some of the 12 warships that were in Mediterranean waters near Turkey to the Red Sea, where they can fire through Saudi Arabian airspace instead. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered the repositioning Thursday night, Pentagon officials said.
Turkish cooperation was essential to a Pentagon plan to attack Iraq with massive ground forces from the north as well as the south, which U.S. officials said could achieve a swifter victory with fewer allied casualties.
But with Turkey's mostly Muslim populace strongly against a war and the country's politics in turmoil, U.S. officials ran out of hope for a quick reversal of parliament's surprise decision March 1.
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told a congressional hearing Friday that a $15-billion aid package offered to Turkey in return for backing a U.S. troop deployment was no longer on the table.
The senior U.S. official said presidential envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was dispatched to Turkey with the same message Friday after President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney phoned Erdogan this week to urge quick parliamentary approval of overflight rights.
The official, who requested anonymity, said Turkey would not get the aid if it eventually allowed overflights without accepting a U.S. troop deployment.
Erdogan, who became prime minister Friday in a change of government, pleaded for time to organize his Cabinet and win a parliamentary vote of confidence next week before taking up any form of help in a war, Turkish sources said.
