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Turkey seen sending troops to Lebanon despite fears |
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Written by Reuters
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Thursday, 17 August 2006 04:04 |
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Turkey, eager to play a bigger role in its Middle East backyard, looks increasingly likely to commit troops to a U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, but critics say the risks far outweigh any benefits.
The United States, Israel and Lebanon all back the dispatch of troops from Muslim Turkey, a NATO member which maintains good ties with both Arab states and Israel and boasts a strong army with long experience of peacekeeping from Afghanistan to Kosovo.
Some Turkish commentators even speak of Turkey's moral responsibility to get more involved in a region that was governed from Istanbul for centuries until the end of World War One as part of the sprawling multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul flew to Beirut on Wednesday on a fact-finding trip billed by the Radikal daily as "a precursor to sending troops". Gul will also visit Israel on Sunday.
Turkish diplomats stress that Ankara will make a final decision only after the U.N. Security Council has agreed precise rules of engagement for the force, set to total 15,000. News reports say Turkey may contribute up to 1,500 non-combat troops.
Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), has come out against deployment, saying Turkey will be dragged into "the Middle East ring of fire".
"We should not become a party to this conflict ... Turkey is not France or Belgium, we are a part of this region," he said on Tuesday after Gul briefed him on the government's deliberations.
With elections looming next year, some in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots, are also jittery, especially over the possible risk of Turkish troops coming under fire from Hizbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon.
Political analysts were sceptical about the AKP's motives.
"It is a smokescreen that will allow (Prime Minister Tayyip) Erdogan to say to his conservative religious voters 'look, we are helping our Muslim brothers'," said Cengiz Aktar of Istanbul's Bahcesehir University.
"Turkey has good intentions but they are without substance, especially as this government clearly leans towards the Muslim states and is not seen by Israel as an honest broker."
"Anyway, sending troops will please neither side because there is no peace to keep. And Israel will measure the success of the U.N. force by its ability to disarm Hizbollah, which is frankly a mission impossible," Aktar said.
Analysts say the Lebanon force will be at best a risky distraction for Ankara from more pressing issues, such as its drive to join the European Union and battling Kurdish separatist rebels in impoverished southeast Turkey.
They also say the militant Shi'ite Iran-backed Hizbollah has little love for Sunni Muslim Turkey, which has a secular political system and close security ties with their arch enemies Israel and the United States.
"Lebanon is not at all like the other countries where we have sent peacekeepers," said Suat Kiniklioglu, director of the German Marshall Fund's Ankara office.
"Why should Turkish soldiers become a potential target in Lebanon when we have a serious security situation here at home," he said, referring to continued clashes between security forces and guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). |