Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turkey extends mandate for U.S. Iraq patrols
by Reuters
Posted: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 07:41 am CST

ANKARA, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Turkey"s parliament on Sunday extended for a further six months the mandate of U.S. and British aircraft that patrol a no-fly zone over northern Iraq. The warplanes, flying out of a southern Turkish airbase at Incirlik in Operation Northern Watch, are a crucial part of the U.S. policy of containing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The jets are frequently challenged by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire and respond by bombing Iraqi air defence targets. U.S. Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell said on Saturday that the incoming administration of President-elect George W. Bush would try to breathe new life into sanctions against Iraq imposed after the 1991 Gulf War. "I think it"s possible to re-energise those sanctions and continue to contain him and then confront him, should that become necessary," Powell said. Turkish Defence Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu told parliament in Ankara that the U.S.-led air patrols of northern Iraq were in the interests of Turkey, a close NATO ally of the United States. "The continuation of this operation is seen as necessary for foreign policy balance while uncertainty and tension continue in northern Iraq," he said. "More than anyone else, Northern Watch is in Turkey"s interests." MPs later passed the motion, extending the force"s permission to operate until June 30, 2001. Turkey regularly extends the operation"s mandate despite its own concerns over stability in northern Iraq and worries about the damage sanctions do to its own economy. Separatist Turkish Kurd rebels have bases in northern Iraq, which has been run by two local Iraqi Kurdish groups since they wrested control of the region from Baghdad after the 1991 conflict. The United States would like to forge those Kurdish groups into a united bulwark against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and sees the flights as a protective shield for them. Turkey, however, fears that growing Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq might lead to an eventual Kurdish state on its borders that could fuel Kurdish separatism within Turkey. But Cakmakoglu stressed the benefits that the U.S. flights gave Turkey in monitoring rebel activity in the region, and said no Kurdish state would be allowed. "I again and again underline that at the head of Operation Northern Watch"s principles is the preservation of Iraq"s political and territorial unity," he said. A second no-fly zone in the south of Iraq is designed to protect Shi"ite Moslems from government attacks.

Related Information...

Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives