Turkey fears Iraqi influence

HAKKARI, Turkey -- To understand why Turkey is hesitant to back a U.S. attack against Iraq, just look at Hakkari, a mountain town near the Iraqi border where poverty and unemployment fuel anger at the government and support for Kurdish nationalism.\nTurkey's backing is crucial to any U.S. attack on Iraq, but the overwhelmingly Muslim nation fears that Saddam Hussein's removal could lead to the split-up of Iraq, with Kurds in the north declaring a separate state and providing an example for Turkey's Kurds.\nIn Hakkari, poverty forces men to line up in the freezing cold to get free government coal to heat their homes and many people get their food from state kitchens.\nAlmost half of the town's population of 60,000 are villagers who fled the countryside, either threatened by guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, or more often, by Turkish soldiers. Human rights groups say Turkey burned thousands of villages as part of a strategy to clear the countryside and deny the guerrillas local support.\n"If the Iraqis have democracy, we can start pointing to them and saying, 'Our brothers have democracy, why not us,'" said a Kurdish activist in a furniture shop in Hakkari. He agreed to speak on condition that he was only identified as Ahmet.\n"The Turkish government says there are no Kurdish people. If there is a Kurdish government in Iraq, this idea will fall apart," he added.\nKurdish guerillas battled Turkey for 15 years, leaving 37,000 dead.\nU.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz visited Ankara on Tuesday to press for Turkey's support for an Iraq operation. Turkey, a NATO member, borders Iraq and hosted more than 100 U.S. warplanes during the 1991 Gulf War. U.S. troops would need to cross through Turkey if they were to fight in northern Iraq.\nWolfowitz, in meetings with Prime Minister Abdullah Gul, offered reassurance for Turkey's fears for its economy, discussion how U.S. aid could provide a cushion in the event of war. During a July visit, Wolfowitz outlined Washington's "firm opposition to a Kurdish state in northern Iraq."\nIn the southeast, where half of Turkey's 12 million Kurds live, the feelings are different.\nHuseyin Umit, the mayor of Hakkari, said Turkey would have nothing to fear from a Kurdish state in Iraq. Umit is from a pro-Kurdish party the courts have been trying to shut down.\n"If there is a Kurdistan in Iraq, there would be no problem," he said. "It would be progress... We would respect and support it."\nTurkish officials have repeatedly warned Washington that they will not accept a Kurdish state in northern Iraq. Turkey already has several thousands soldiers backed by about three dozen tanks in northern Iraq to chase Turkish Kurdish guerrillas.\nIt is likely to increase the force if war breaks out as a reminder to Iraqi Kurds that Turkey's concerns cannot be ignored.\nKurdish guerrillas in Turkey declared a unilateral cease-fire in 1999 after their leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured, but the situation is still tense.\nFacing strong European Union pressure, Turkey's parliament this summer agreed to limited television broadcasts in Kurdish and private classes in Kurdish, but many Kurds dismissed the moves as aimed more at the EU than local Kurds.