Iraq Still Clouds Turkey Ties Despite Rice Trip

By Gareth Jones

ANKARA (Reuters) - Tensions between the United States and Muslim ally Turkey persist, especially over Iraq's future, despite Turks' delight that Condoleezza Rice included Ankara on her first foreign trip as the new Secretary of State.

Turks also welcomed Rice's message the United States, like Turkey, was opposed to any breakup of Iraq, where Turks fear the emergence of an independent Kurdish state on their border.

"It was very candid, very positive," a Turkish diplomat said of Sunday's talks between Rice and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. "There was good personal chemistry."

But political analysts said the old problems remain.

"It is pure wishful thinking to say things have been patched up with Rice's visit. It will take more than a few visits to get this relationship back on track," said Suat Kinikligolu of the Ankara Center for Turkish Policy Studies.

Washington was outraged in 2003 when Turkey's parliament refused to let U.S. troops invade north Iraq from Turkish soil.

For Turkey, the heart of the problem is its conviction the Americans are ignoring efforts by Kurds in northern Iraq to take control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as part of a wider drive to carve out an independent Kurdish state.

Ankara fears this would reignite separatism among the Kurds of southeast Turkey and destabilize the wider region.

Both before and after Iraq's Jan. 30 elections, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan criticized the United States for failing to rein in the Iraqi Kurds. He said Washington had also failed to clamp down on Turkish Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, despite promises to do so.

Gul, usually restrained in his public comments, said Ankara could not stand by if Kurds seized Kirkuk, raising the prospect of a Turkish military intervention. Few take such a threat literally, but the rhetoric jacked up tensions further.

Putting a brave face on things, Rice said after meeting Gul that Washington and Ankara were old friends and allies whose strong relationship allowed them sometimes to disagree.

Turkish diplomats said they believed the second Bush administration would be more sensitive to Turkish concerns. But they conceded that nothing has changed on the ground.

CONTESTED KIRKUK

Kirkuk looks set to remain a flashpoint, with Iraq's Kurds saying it is historically theirs, a view contested by both the Arabs and by the Turkic-speaking Turkmen minority whom Turkey feels it has a special duty to protect.

Rice effectively sidestepped the issue of Kirkuk, saying it was for all Iraqis to agree on the city's final status.

Equally discouraging for Turkey, U.S. forces, stretched by the insurgency in central Iraq, are no more likely to march into the relatively peaceful Kurdish north to hunt down an estimated 5,000 Turkish Kurdish rebels than they were before Rice's visit.

Turkish nationalists believe it is time for Ankara to get tough with Washington over what they see as its "bad faith."

"As long as this situation continues, with the Kurds winning the upper hand in Kirkuk and pushing for an independent Kurdistan, it will hurt Turkey more and more ... We cannot go on like this," said Hasan Unal of Ankara's Bilkent University.

He said Turkey should consider suspending all logistical support for the Americans in Iraq and threaten to pull its peacekeeping troops out of Afghanistan. It should also deny U.S. forces use of Turkey's Incirlik airbase, he said.

The nationalists point to opinion polls which show Turkey has become one of the most anti-American countries, saying no democratic government can ignore such trends.

The key to the situation remains Erdogan himself.

Many analysts say Erdogan's anti-American outbursts are not just cheap populism calculated to curry favor with his Islamist voters. He actually means it, they say, but stress he is also too pragmatic to turn his back completely on Washington.

"Turkey cannot afford to alienate too much the United States because they are too active in this region," said Kiniklioglu.