Turkey beefed up its defenses Wednesday, shipping Dutch ground-to-air missiles into a southern port as Washington increased pressure for permission to deploy troops for a possible invasion of Iraq. AWACS air reconnaissance aircraft were also due to arrive at a Turkish base to monitor airspace around neighboring Iraq, which Washington says is hiding weapons of mass destruction. With a multi-billion dollar financial package at stake, concerns rippled through Turkey's markets about whether parliament would approve a motion allowing U.S. troops to open a secondary, northern front against Baghdad. Turkey has, in U.S. eyes at least, been dragging its feet over financial and military terms for the deployment. The state-run Anatolian news agency said Secretary of State Colin Powell had telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul to stress the urgency of a parliamentary vote on the deployment of 62,000 troops, aircraft and helicopters. But officials said debate would start at the earliest Thursday. "Discussion of the motion was not included in today's agenda of parliament's general assembly. The motion will be discussed in the general assembly tomorrow," a parliamentary source told Reuters Wednesday.
| Good. This has dragged out too long... |
While the ships of the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division — a body of 20,000-30,000 men backed by heavy armor — waited near Turkey, a ship began unloading Patriot air defense missiles in the port of Iskenderun. The missiles were provided by the Dutch government under a bilateral agreement to protect Turkey against any Iraqi retaliation. Large trucks and heavy lifting vehicles marked with the Dutch tricolor flag drove, under sunny blue skies, through the open front of a roll-on roll-off ship onto the quayside.
That would be one of those ro-ro ships that docked yesterday.
Turkish military patrolled the harbor, on the Mediterranean coast, and marshaled traffic. The Patriots are the first consignment promised by the Netherlands to Turkey under a bilateral arrangement. They could be mounted around military bases or cities.
The Netherlands provided the missile crews as well.
The AWACS aircraft were due to arrive under a NATO agreement in the Anatolian city of Konya later Wednesday to patrol the skies near the Iraqi border. |