18 January 2002

1. "Turkey cracks down on campaign for Kurdish-language education", Turkey has rounded up more than 5,000 people and arrested about 300 in a crackdown against a campaign to have the Kurdish language taught at universities and schools, a pro-Kurdish party said Thursday.

2. "Iraq must clear the Turkish hurdle in the way of democratic change", neighbor could be the final obstacle to Removing saddam.

3. "Americans Can Go to Turkey-Still", with the Turkish prime minister at his side, President Bush announced in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he is lifting a ban on Americans traveling to Turkey.

4. "Difficult Summit", on the summit on Cyprus between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders.

5. "Push more vigorously for Mideast democracy"

6. "Turkey Signs Leopard Tank Upgrade Contract", Turkey has signed a contract to upgrade its fleet of 162 Leopard main battle tanks.

7. "Cyprus unity talks breakthrough", a major breakthrough has been made in the diplomatic efforts to reunify Cyprus.

8. "Turkey Gains Prestige Since Sept. 11", for Turkey, too, there is a pre- and post-Sept. 11. Once the black sheep of Europe, often having a hard time persuading international lenders to bail out its fragile economy, Turkey is now successfully presenting itself as a role model in the Muslim world and seems certain of billions of dollars worth of loans.

1. - AFP - "Turkey cracks down on campaign for Kurdish-language education":

ANKARA

Turkey has rounded up more than 5,000 people and arrested about 300 in a crackdown against a campaign to have the Kurdish language taught at universities and schools, a pro-Kurdish party said Thursday.

"More than 5,000 people, including university students, parents and HADEP members, have been detained and 284 of them have been arrested," an official with the People's Democracy Party (HADEP) told AFP. The campaign, seen by authorities as a sign of Kurdish separatism, started in Istanbul universities in November as hundreds of Kurdish students signed petitions asking for Kurdish language education, which is banned under Turkey's constitution.

The movement quickly spread to universities across the country and has recently spilled over to high schools, where parents have submitted similar petitions to the education ministry. Authorities charged that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara accuses of terrorism, and which has waged a 15-year war for self-rule in southeast Turkey, was behind the campaign. Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen said the movement was part of a recent PKK strategy of "civil disobedience", in a circular to governors across Turkey released on Thursday. The PKK declared an end to its armed campaign in September 1999 to seek a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict following peace calls from its leader Abdullah Ocalan, on death row in Turkish jail.

Since then fighting in the southeast has significantly scaled down, but Ankara has downplayed PKK's peace overtures and the army continues to hunt down the rebels. In his circular, Yucelen called for "cooperation between the education ministry and the security forces in dealing with the petition campaign, which is part of PKK's new action strategy." Turkey, a European Union membership candidate with a troubled human rights record, has long been under pressure to grant its Kurds cultural freedoms. But Ankara is reluctant to do so, fearing that such rights could encourage nationalist sentiment among the Kurds and rekindle separatist violence. Yucelen said the "civil disobedience" movement also urged Kurds to use their mother tongue in classrooms, debates and conferences and to hang posters in Kurdish.

The PKK appeals are being conveyed to the people through "formations acting in parallel with the PKK," he said in a likely reference to pro-Kurdish non-governmental organizations, parties and media. The HADEP official said his party was among institutions accused of organizing the campaign in line with PKK directives. "This is not true, even though education in mother tongue is among the issues we favor," he said. HADEP, which campaigns for Kurdish cultural freedoms, is already charged of of being linked to the PKK and faces the risk of being banned in a pending case at the constitutional court. Shortly after the petition campaign started in November, Turkey's higher ducation board urged universities to either expel or suspend signatory students.

The board said the petitions were exactly the same as samples issued on nine internet websites affiliated with the PKK. In October, Turkey passed a package of constitutional reforms to catch up with EU democracy standards, which paved the way for the country's Kurds to broadcast and publish material in their mother tongue. But Kurdish-language education was left outside the scope of the package.

2. - The Daily Star (Lebanon) - "Iraq must clear the Turkish hurdle in the way of democratic change":

Neighbor could be the final obstacle to Removing saddam

LONDON / By Ghassan al-Atiyyah

Ankara is playing devil's advocate between Baghdad and Washington as it needs regional trade but is also dependant on international aid

For more than four centuries, the country now known as Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire. Iraq only attained independent status thanks to an invasion by the British during World War I.

While a few Iraqi officers in the Ottoman Army sided with Britain in the hope of winning Arab independence after the defeat of the Ottoman Turks, most Iraqis particularly the religious clerics of Karbala and Najaf called for jihad in the name of Islam against the "infidel" British invaders.

The subsequent Turkish nationalist "revolution" led by Kemal Ataturk, however, lent credence to the break of Syria and Iraq with Turkish influence; the stage was set for a new type of relationship between Turkey and the newly independent countries of the Arab Levant.

This was chiefly the case with Iraq, which came to be ruled by ex-Ottoman Army officers men like Nuri Said, Jaafar al-Askari and Yassin al-Hashimi, thanks to whom excellent relations were established between the two countries. These relations were crowned by the betrothal of King Faisal II of Iraq to a Turkish lady.

The rapprochement between Turkey and Iraq which accelerated after the dispute over Mosul was settled developed into a political alliance with the establishment of the Baghdad Pact in the early 1950s. In addition to Turkey and Iraq, the Baghdad Pact brought together Pakistan, Iran and Britain in a new Western-backed regional order designed to uphold regional stability and confront Soviet and Communist influence.

The continuing improvement in Turkish-Iraqi ties was unaffected by the establishment of republican rule in Iraq in 1958 and reached its zenith under Saddam Hussein. All the regimes that ruled Iraq post-1958 (beginning with Abdelkarim Kassem, the two Aref brothers, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, and finally Saddam Hussein) pursued a common cause with Turkey in fighting the Kurds. This cooperation between the neighbors in fighting Kurdish insurgency became extremely close during Saddam's rule when they signed an agreement that allowed Turkish troops to pursue Kurdish rebels inside Iraq.

All Iraqi governments, whether royalist or republican, moreover, were as one with Turkey in separating religion from state within the framework of a secular constitution.

The advent of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran strengthened the alliance between Turkey and Iraq, despite the fact that Ankara remained neutral during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

The dispute between Syria and Iraq added a new dimension to the close relationship between Baghdad and Ankara. A trans-Turkey pipeline was built to pump Iraqi oil to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan instead of the old trans-Syria pipeline. Thus Iraq became Turkey's No. 1 trading partner.

When Syria backed Nicosia during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Iraq supported Turkey. The Iraqis refused to boycott Turkey because of the invasion and, in fact, provided Ankara with oil at reduced prices a deed not forgotten by Bulent Ecevit, prime minister at the time.

Also, while Damascus hosted Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, Iraq considered him an outlaw. Saddam Hussein, moreover, never saw the alliance between Turkey and Israel as an obstacle to cooperation with the Turks.

When he invaded Kuwait in 1990, Saddam Hussein never expected Turkey to join the US-led anti-Iraq coalition. He had calculated that the Turks would have too much to lose economically to consider antagonizing Baghdad.

The Turks, however, saw the situation in a different light. They decided to back the US because they believed that the conflict was one-sided and that its outcome was pre-ordained: the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

That was why the Turks were as surprised as everyone else when Saddam stayed in power after being defeated in 1991.

So Ankara decided to resume its lucrative trading relationship with Baghdad and succeeded in regaining much of its political and economic influence with Iraq during the Clinton years, recognizing that the Clinton administration preferred containment to confrontation as a way of dealing with the Iraqi leader.

Turkey thus proceeded to establish networks of commercial and oil-based interests with Iraq outside the framework of UN Security Council resolutions.

Washington, lacking the will to unseat Saddam, did not object to this illegal trading relationship between Turkey and Iraq which grew to more than $1 billion a year because it provided much-needed funds to both Turkey and the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq.

Turkey's conviction that the Saddam regime was there to stay led Ankara to decide to reopen its embassy in Baghdad and appoint an ambassador there for the first time in 10 years. Last July, Turkey agreed to resume the rail service connecting the two countries.

In November 2001, a large delegation of 148 Turkish businessmen headed by the undersecretary of trade visited the Iraqi capital. The visit was followed by the signing of an agreement between a Turkish oil company and the Iraqi government allowing the Turks to drill for oil in the Kirkuk area.

The high priority the Turks (and especially the influential Turkish military) place on economic and security issues causes them not to see the establishment of a democratic regime in Iraq (which would give the Kurds a federal system of government) as being in their best interests.

Anything with a whiff of Kurdish independence is frowned upon by the Turks; that is why the Turkish military is pressuring HADEP, the main Kurdish party in Turkey, just because it won overwhelming support in the Kurdish southeast. Last April, Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem advised the US administration "not to trust the (Kurdish-dominated) Iraqi opposition, because it cannot deliver."

But all that was before Sept. 11. The attacks changed many things, not least of which was the way Iraq was seen by the United States. In the new world, intervention in Iraq has become a very real option for Washington.

For the Turks, such a possibility will return them to their 1990-91 position. As Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu put it, "We don't want to repeat that experience."

Turkey realizes the importance of the role it will be required to play in any upcoming action against Iraq. Yet it does not want to end up like it did 10 years ago, with millions of refugees knocking on its door Kurds who became a reservoir of support for the PKK. The Gulf War has also cost the Turkish economy the staggering sum of $40 billion in lost trade.

Nevertheless, as the only Muslim member of NATO, and as a beneficiary of large amounts of American aid (to shore up its collapsed economy), Turkey realizes that it cannot refuse America's request for help in any upcoming attack on Iraq especially since the final say rests with the military-dominated National Security Council.

The Turks agreed to a British request to increase their military presence in the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey after Sept. 11.

Yet the question facing Turkey right now is how to deal with a possible American decision to go after Saddam Hussein? Turkey has an opportunity in its hands to call on the US to pursue the diplomatic option, especially since Europe is not that keen on a military strike against Iraq at the present time. That is why Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit a personal friend of Saddam's, and among the first foreign leaders to visit Baghdad after the Gulf War will try to mediate between Baghdad and Washington during his upcoming visit to the US, particularly since the Americans have indicated that the return of UN weapons inspectors would be an avenue through which they can deal with Iraq.

Ecevit will try to persuade the Iraqis to allow the inspectors to return to work, thus removing the pretext the Americans are using to target the country. If Saddam rejects this Turkish proposal, then the Turks will feel free to join the US in attacking Iraq. Turkish acquiescence can be bought by international aid.

Ankara can demand to play a role in choosing a post-Saddam regime in Iraq, something the Americans do not object to. That is why Washington is pressuring the Kurds of Iraq to cooperate with Turkey and not to do anything that might raise Turkish fears. For their part, the Iraqi Kurds seem to have heeded America's call: They have been stressing for some time that they have no intention of breaking away from Iraq, or of harboring ambitions for an independent state of their own. They have even helped fight the PKK. But Turkey is not satisfied with Kurdish promises; the assurances they seek can only be satisfied by a Turkish presence on the ground in northern Iraq.

Ankara wants reassurances that any military action against Iraq will result in the removal of Saddam Hussein. It doesn't want to repeat the experience of the Gulf War, which ended with Saddam still in power.

Unfortunately, a democratic Iraq is not among Turkey's conditions for joining an American-led effort to unseat Saddam Hussein. This at a time when Turkey has a genuine opportunity in its hands to play a role in creating a pro-Western and democratic Iraq.

A democratic Iraq would be an insurance policy for Turkey against Islamic fundamentalism, Kurdish separatism, and Arab nationalist expansionism.

One of the main reasons for the collapse of the regional order envisaged by the Baghdad Pact in the 1950s was its lack of political and genuine democratic participation. At the time, the fear of communism was reason enough to bypass democracy.

Now though, democracy has become an essential prerequisite for stability in the region, and a measure of America's credibility as well.

3. - The Los Angeles Times - "Americans Can Go to Turkey-Still":

WASHINGTON / By Edwin Chen, Times Staff Writer

With the Turkish prime minister at his side, President Bush announced in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he is lifting a ban on Americans traveling to Turkey.

There was only one problem. There never was a ban on travel to Turkey.

As it turns out, Turkey has been on the State Department's "travel sheet"--the lowest level of a four-tier system that provides information for U.S. business people and tourists going abroad. A travel sheet often includes reports on crime and other security concerns in a particular country. A State Department official, who requested anonymity, said listing a nation on a travel sheet basically aims to send a message of "be careful."

Bush's order will result in a toning down of the cautionary information about conditions in Turkey, officials said.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit perpetuated Bush's error, telling reporters after their meeting: "We have just got the news . . . from the president that the ban on tourism to Turkey is to be lifted. So we will be very happy to see a great number of tourists from the United States."

But a spokesman for the Turkish Embassy in Washington told The Times: "There is no travel ban. But I'm not in a position to clarify." The State Department official, told of Bush's remarks, said: "I don't know what the president had in mind, but whatever he said, I'm right behind him."

The officer said the department's three other categories are: a flat-out travel ban; a warning, which he described as, "We're telling you not to go"; and an advisory, which he said is meant as a caution about going to a particular country.

On the State Department's Web page (http://www.state.gov), the travel sheet on Turkey, dated July 5, 2001, notes that "since the 1970s, urban and rural acts of terrorism throughout Turkey have caused loss of life and injury to government officials and civilians, including some foreign tourists."

The Turkish government had asked for a toning down of that warning, said Sean McCormack, a National Security Council spokesman.

The State Department's bureau of consular affairs now will "rework the sheet to more accurately reflect the socioeconomic and military situation on the ground in Turkey--to bring it more up to date," McCormack said. "It's a much more stable situation now in southeastern Turkey."

In his remarks, Bush thanked Ecevit for his support for the war on terrorism and noted Turkey's improving economy.

"And today, I'm informing the prime minister that we're lifting the travel ban on Turkey," Bush added.

"Oh that's wonderful," a smiling Ecevit said, interrupting the president.

Bush continued: "So that our citizens can feel comfortable going to that wonderful country to visit, and to enjoy the rich history of one of our valued allies and friends."

4. - CUMHURIYET - "Difficult Summit":

On the summit on Cyprus between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders

By Ali Sirmen

Denktas and Clerides are coming together to begin a series of summit meetings which are expected to go on for six months. The two leaders will meet three times a week during the next six months. In the course of the meetings, which will be conducted with no conditions attached, UN Special Envoy Alvaro de Soto will also be present.

Even though Denktas claims that de Soto will be there only to take notes as an observer, everyone knows that the UN special envoy has some solution plans in his bag and intends to put them on the table at the first sign of a block in the meetings. The method of the meetings is interesting. During the talks 'given and take' implementation will be valid and if an agreement covering all issues is not reached, there will be no agreement to speak of. In other words, if there is no total agreement, the issues agreed upon cannot be presented in any other negotiation process.

The start of negotiations where Denktas will take up the structure of the Cyprus state and the place of Turks within it is a positive development. However, it is also certain that it will be a very difficult summit which doesn't have a great chance of success. In fact a solution in Cyprus would be much easier than other disputes, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, we cannot ignore the presence of two important influences, one from within and the other from abroad, which make an agreement difficult to reach.

The declaration of the EU to the effect that it is ready to admit the Greek Cypriot administration into the Union as the sole representative of the island even if the question is not solved, and the recent pronunciation of this view by EU Enlargement Commissioner Verheugen, can only encourage the Greek Cypriot's insistence on an intransigent stance. The problem will come an end with the membership of the Greek Cypriot administration to the EU, whether the issue is solved or not.

The EU's mistaken stance is the biggest foreign obstacle in the way of a solution. It makes one wonder whether Brussels wanted to close all doors to Turkey with this move or find a solution to the Cyrus problem. The obstacle for a solution coming from within comes from opposition in both sides. Some members of the opposition in Turkish Cyprus are pressuring Denktas to agree to any solution whatever the cost.

The difficult economic situation of the TRNC and the 'motherland' add to the attraction of EU membership for the youth in the TRNC youth. EU membership and passports would mean the opening up of opportunities throughout the world for youths who have lived in a sense of isolation since their birth. It is impossible to explain to these young people that the economy in EU countries is not expanding but contracting.

If the opposition party of the other side had urged their leader to an agreement, the position of the Turkish youth might have been a factor facilitating a solution. However, this opposition on the Greek Cypriot side is pressuring Clerides not to make any concessions as the EU is solving the problem in their favour.

In short, as one side is insisting that the best solution for them is no solution, the other side is saying that no solution is not a solution. The difference in these positions shows that this will be a very difficult summit.

5. - The Christian Science Monitor - "Push more vigorously for Mideast democracy":

SALT LAKE CITY / By John Hughes

- I was having a discussion with my small son the other day about the freedoms we enjoy in America - the freedom to worship as we wish, to choose where we live and travel and work, to enjoy a free press and the right to speak out, to vote for the government of our choice. He was startled to learn that none of these freedoms we so easily take for granted existed in some of the countries I have lived and worked in over the years.

It's a cornerstone of American foreign policy that we strive to promote economic and political reform in such countries. We promote this because it's right. It's also in our self-interest. Countries that are stable and prospering are not usually the world's troublemakers.

The efforts of the United States and others have borne fruit. The trend toward greater freedom is in the right direction. There is one notable exception: the Islamic lands of the Middle East. The democracy gap between them and the rest of the world is dramatic. In such lands, the American voice promoting democracy has been much more muted than in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the erstwhile communist countries of Eastern Europe.

The reason for this lack of emphasis is oil. Oil that is the lifeblood of the United States and the Western world. Most of the world's easily extractable oil is in the hands of desert states clustered around the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia sits on about 25 percent of the world's known oil reserves. Four other countries in the area contain another 40 percent.

The oil states are often in the hands of rulers who are autocratic and corrupt. To Middle Eastern allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt we whisper that they need to change. They in turn snap back that if we press for, and they effect, democracy too rapidly, the alternative might be worse: extremist Islamic theocracies of the bin Laden ilk. We in turn murmur that if they don't reform, the result may be extremist Islamic theocracies anyway.

And while this gentle dialogue goes on, the oil continues to be pumped and to flow. The US, with only 5 percent of the world's population, guzzles 25 percent of the world's oil. Wouldn't US problems be solved then by Americans easing their dependence on Middle Eastern oil, perhaps eliminating such dependence altogether? Ideally, yes.

In this regard, the Bush administration took a significant step last week with a plan to power the cars of the future with hydrogen-based fuel cells. Fuel cells drawing hydrogen and oxygen from the air, if successfully developed, could ultimately replace the internal combustion engine, thus sharply reducing US use of oil for gasoline production.

But the experts say this could be 10 to 20 years away. So while the US can and should adopt a conservation and alternative-energy program that would leave it less hostage to the oil-producing lands of the Middle East, dependence on their oil is going to be a fact of life for the foreseeable future.

This does not mean that the US should not engage such allies as Saudi Arabia in a franker and more direct discussion of the relationship between the two countries. Fifteen of the 19 Arabs who hijacked airliners and killed thousands of Americans by crashing those planes into New York's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon were Saudis. That alone gives the US some right to straight talk with the Saudi regime.

What kind of social structure bred such terrorists? What Saudi links were there with Osama bin Laden? What accommodation has there been in Saudi Arabia with extremist Islamic fundamentalism? What needs to be done to bring meaningful reforms to those Saudis, who are justifiably frustrated, without tipping power to those extremists who might preach reform but who actually would impose bin Laden and Taliban-like tyranny on the country?

And by the way, shouldn't Saudi Arabia be more cooperative in lowering the price of the oil it extracts for about a dollar a barrel and then sells to the US for anywhere between $15 and $30 a barrel, depending on how the price is rigged at a given moment in time?

No sensible person is suggesting that these Islamic countries can move overnight to Jeffersonian democracy. Such radical change could lead to destabilization and a threat to the West's oil supply that would be counter to American and other Western interests.

But there should be movement in the direction of democracy. That should be encouraged with more US vigor than has been the case hitherto.

John Hughes is a former editor of the Monitor and currently editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret News.

6. - Middle East Newsline - "Turkey Signs Leopard Tank Upgrade Contract":

ANKARA

Turkey has signed a contract to upgrade its fleet of 162 Leopard main battle tanks.

The Defense Ministry signed the contract with the Turkey firm Aselsan. The contract includes the modernization of Leopard 1A1 and A1A4 tanks. The tanks were manufactured in Germany.

Officials did not provide the cost of the contract. Industry sources estimated the upgrade at more than $100 million.

The upgrade will focus on the fire control systems for the Leopard. The project will comprise the installation, integration and testing of the systems within two years.

The Leopard tank upgrade was one of the few major weapons projects that survived a suspension of 32 defense programs in March 2001. The suspension affected projects that totalled $19.5 billion.

7. - CNN - "Cyprus unity talks breakthrough":

NICOSIA

A major breakthrough has been made in the diplomatic efforts to reunify Cyprus.

Rauf Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot leader, and Greek Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides, have agreed to meet three times a week starting on Monday.

power between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in a new republic. The development has been welcomed by U.S. President George W. Bush. "We're very encouraged that there is a dialogue now taking place ... you can't solve a problem unless the parties are willing to talk," Bush said after hosting Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit in Washington on Wednesday.

"The very fact, the very process of dialogue" could help bring a settlement, Ecevit said.Denktash said he and Clerides would open Monday's meeting -- the first in an accelerated process aimed at ending the island's 27-year division -- by assessing where the leaders differ. "Then, we'll discuss the sides in a new republic that will be founded, the functions of the two equal sides," Denktash told journalists.

Greek Cypriots want the island reunified as a single state, in line with U.N. resolutions, while Denktash -- backed by Turkey -- has called for a looser arrangement linking two independent states.

Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded the island in 1974, following a failed coup by supporters of union with Greece.

A breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north is only recognized by Turkey, which maintains some 35,000 troops there.

In a diplomatic breakthrough last month, Denktash and Clerides had met for the first time in four years, and pledged to continue talking until a comprehensive settlement is reached.

The division of powers between autonomous Greek and Turkish Cypriot entities, which will deal with domestic affairs, and a central joint administration representing the country internationally, could be one of the key issues in talks which de Soto said would be "lengthy."

Other thorny issues include restoration of property to Cypriot refugees from the 1974 fighting, and how to draw borders separating the Greek and Turkish Cypriot zones. There is mounting international pressure for an end to the dispute before Cyprus' expected entry into the European Union by the end of next year.

Turkey has said it could annex the north if the EU admits Cyprus without a settlement. That could end Turkey's own hopes of joining the union. Greece, the other main power broker in the Cyprus dispute, is already an EU member.

8. - AP - "Turkey Gains Prestige Since Sept. 11":

WASHINGTON

For Turkey, too, there is a pre- and post-Sept. 11. Once the black sheep of Europe, often having a hard time persuading international lenders to bail out its fragile economy, Turkey is now successfully presenting itself as a role model in the Muslim world and seems certain of billions of dollars worth of loans.

"We provide living proof that a Western-type democracy can exist and thrive in a predominantly Muslim country," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said Thursday in an address at the National Press Club, wrapping up his four-day visit to Washington.

President Bush met Ecevit on Wednesday and said Turkey was a close friend and ally of the United States.

During that meeting, Bush said Turkey was a role model for Afghanistan and the rest of the Muslim world, Turkish and U.S. officials said.

Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, is governed by a staunchly secular constitution that bans the use of religion in politics. It is also a parliamentary democracy, although the European Union and to a lesser degree the United States have urged Turkey to reform its laws to reduce the role of the powerful military and guarantee human and civil rights.

Analysts, and even Turkish officials, say the Sept. 11 attack is one of the main causes of the shift in Western attitudes toward Turkey.

"The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 were an eye opener for the West for perceiving the significance of Turkey as a role model," said Sedat Ergin, a senior columnist at Turkey's mass-circulation daily Hurriyet who accompanied the Turkish delegation.

NATO member Turkey immediately supported the U.S-led war on terrorism. Turkey is also sending 261 military personnel for the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and has offered to take over the force's leadership later this year. Britain currently leads the force.

The United States said it welcomed Turkey's proposal, but officials say more talks have to be held to decide whether Turkey should take the lead.

Turkey has also offered to help rebuild a national Afghan army. On Thursday, Ecevit said other countries had to stay out of Afghan politics for the country to find stability.

"It can be rebuilt if other countries with selfish interests do not meddle as has been done in the past," Ecevit said in an interview with PBS. "If politically the Afghan people are left alone, they will mend their own fences, they will solve their own problems."

The United States also needs Turkey's support if it wants to attack Iraq, Turkey's neighbor to the south. Ecevit said Thursday he was against a military option in Iraq. He said that he had been assured by Bush that the United States would consult with Turkey over any action against President Saddam Hussein.

Ecevit said Thursday that in his meeting with the president, Bush "expressed in strong terms that he has to get rid of Saddam Hussein."

But Ecevit said Turkey "wouldn't even think of a military action (against Iraq), because that would have extremely adverse results for Turkey."

Turkey fears an attack on Iraq would lead to the creation of a Kurdish state and fuel the aspirations of Turkey's autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels.

Turkey's new importance has so far translated into the United States pressing international lenders to grant Turkey loans for to help it emerge from a severe financial crisis, analysts say.

Ecevit on Thursday thanked the United States for its support.

"Large amounts of money have come to Turkey from the IMF and the World Bank, and the role of the United States in securing this cannot be ignored," Ecevit said. The International Monetary Fund said Thursday it would probably soon reach a new standby agreement with Turkey that has some $10 billion pegged to it.

Turkey's renewed significance did not, however, bring any clear pledges from the Bush administration for trade privileges or a write off of $5 billion worth of military debt. Ecevit said Thursday that trade issues take time and said he was encouraged by the creation of an Economic Partnership Commission which will discuss how to enhance trade and commercial relations between the two countries.