Erdogan does not commit to use of Turk bases, calls for peaceful means

Top Turkish general, Hilmi Ozkok, advises US to avoid war on Iraq

Turkish women out shopping yesterday during the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in the capital city of Ankara.

By Louis Meixler - The Associated Press

ANKARA - The head of the winning party in Turkish elections refused yesterday to commit to allowing US warplanes to use Turkish bases if there was a war against Iraq, and called for a peaceful solution to US-Iraqi tensions.

Turkey borders Iraq and its support would be crucial to any Iraq operation. Some 50 US aircraft use an air base in southern Turkey to patrol a no-fly zone over northern Iraq.

“The most preferred result is to resolve this issue with peace,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “We don’t want blood, tears and death.”

Erdogan said he has “been receiving messages from the US side” that tensions over Iraq and its suspected programs to develop weapons of mass destruction may be resolved peacefully. “There are positive developments on this matter,” he said. Erdogan, like most Turkish politicians, has said Turkey would oppose any Iraq operation unless it had UN approval.

When asked if Turkey would allow the use of its bases if a mission had UN approval, Erdogan said: “I don’t find it appropriate to talk about indefinite results. We don’t know what the outcome will be from the United Nations.”

Erdogan spoke as the head of Turkey’s military, Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, was in the USA to discuss Iraq.

[“Of course we have anxieties. I can only express our national policy on Iraq, that this business be resolved without a war,” Ozkok was quoted by Turkey’s state-run Anatolia news agency as saying while in Washington.

“Quite naturally there are differences in our perspectives. This is nothing to be afraid of, in time, they can be resolved,” he added.]

Turkey fears that minority Kurds in northern Iraq could declare an independent state if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein were overthrown, inspiring Turkey’s large Kurdish population.

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey’s election winner said yesterday that his party, which has its roots in a banned Islamist movement, would move to lift a ban on the Islamic-style headscarf, but only after a “social compromise.” “We will resolve the problems through social compromise. We do not want tensions,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of the Justice and Development Party (AK), said in an interview with NTV television.

Wearing the Islamic-style headscarf is banned in public offices and universities in Muslim-dominated but strictly secular Turkey, where they are viewed as a declaration of religious fundamentalism.

“In a country that has abolished the death penalty, it will be sad if we are unable to lift restrictions obstructing the right to education, an issue which is related to faith,” said Erdogan, whose wife wears a headscarf.

He pledged, however, not to allow the issue to be “exploited” by religious extremists. “Playing the religious card should definitely end in this country,” he said.

For its part, the staunchly secular establishment should stop viewing pious people as extremists, he added.