ISTANBUL, Turkey — U.S. and Turkish officials began discussions Thursday on whether thousands of this nation's soldiers might be deployed to aid American troops in Iraq, with Turkey reportedly raising several conditions it wants met before joining the effort to pacify its southern neighbor.
The talks, which bring together senior military officials and diplomats in Ankara, the Turkish capital, follow Turkey's offer in late March to send an unspecified number of soldiers to help police Iraq. The gesture was aimed at patching up relations with the United States, which were soured when parliament voted on March 1 to deny U.S. troops permission to use Turkey as a launching pad for a second front against Iraq.
Turkey is demanding that any forces deployed in Iraq to help the U.S. mission be placed under Turkish command, Istanbul-based NTV reported Thursday night, citing unnamed Turkish sources. The U.S. military has sought to keep foreign troops in Iraq under its own command.
In advance of Thursday's talks, Turkish officials also had called on U.S. forces to move against Turkish Kurd guerrillas based in northern Iraq, which the Americans have indicated they are willing to do. Turkey has faced a long rebellion by those militants, but the U.S. found Iraq's Kurdish population to be a key ally in the war against Saddam Hussein's regime during the spring.
Early this year, U.S. officials criticized the influential Turkish military, saying it had failed to push for the use of Turkish territory by American forces during the war. But Washington has since toned down its remarks and has been eager to see troops from this predominantly Muslim country deployed in Iraq, whose population is also overwhelmingly Muslim.
As U.S. casualties have mounted in recent weeks, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed hesitation about aiding the American effort, declaring that "Turkish forces will not be permitted to sink in any quagmire in Iraq."
He has stressed that parliament, where his conservative Justice and Development Party enjoys an absolute majority, will need to authorize any deployment. Recent opinion polls indicate that a majority of Turks oppose sending their nation's forces.
Further signaling the government's hesitations, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has said that parliament is more likely to vote in favor of a troop bill if United Nations approval is secured for an international peacekeeping force in Iraq. But Turkish leaders have refrained so far from setting that as a condition for their troops' participation.
