US Arrest of Soldiers Infuriates Turkey

The Turkish army chief of staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, frustrated by the waning Turkish influence in northern Iraq, vented his fury at the US yesterday, declaring a "crisis of confidence" between the two countries.

His outburst in Ankara came after 11 Turkish commandos were arrested by US soldiers during a weekend raid.

Newspaper headlines in Turkey condemned the US forces as "Rambos" and "ugly Americans".

Gen Ozkok added: "We attach great importance to Turkish-American diplomatic and armed forces' relations."

The commandos were returned to Turkey yesterday after a half-hour telephone conversation between the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

A Kurdish intelligence official claimed that the Turkish soldiers had been linked to a plot to assassinate the newly elected governor of Kirkuk to destabilise the region so that Turkish forces would be needed to restore order.

American soldiers seized 15kg of explosives, sniper rifles, grenades and maps of Kirkuk, with circles drawn around positions near the governor's building when they raided Turkish offices in Sulaimaniya.

The episode has stirred old Washington resentment at Turkey's refusal to support the war and roused new concern about its designs on Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq.

Although Turkey has had troops in northern Iraq since the 1990s to pursue Turkish Kurdish separatists, its anti-war stand has denied it a place in America's calculations for post-war Iraq. This irks the Turkish army, which would like to create a 12-mile buffer zone inside Iraq and have free rein to operate against Turkish Kurdish separatists in the area.

Since the war Turkish forces have infiltrated northern Iraq on three previous occasions.

"The Turks are showing that they have an interest up there, and one way or another they are going to maintain a watch," said Judith Yaphe, an Iraq expert at the National Defence University in Washington DC.

Postwar Kirkuk has been a relative success story. The governor, Abdulrahman Mustafa, a Kurd, was elected head of a multi-ethnic governing council two months ago.

"Ankara has repeatedly sought to exploit what it calls abuse of Turkomens by Arabs and Kurds in the city," the Kurdish official said.

Feridun Abdul Qadir, the interior minister in the Kurdish regional government in Sulaimaniya, said: "The Kurds and Turkomens of Kirkuk enjoy good relations. They don't need outside forces coming in and stirring things up."

In April US soldiers in Kirkuk intercepted a Turkish special forces unit trying to smuggle arms into the city.

Colonel William Mayville, the commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which controls Kirkuk, said he had been working with local communities to ease tension.

Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator in Iraq, said last week that he was concerned about external interference in Iraqi affairs.

Three US soldiers have been killed in incidents in Baghdad in 24 hours. Four others were wounded in a grenade attack on their convoy in Ramadi, west of Baghdad.