ANKARA - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey was not going to Iraq for war.
Following his meeting with Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov, Erdogan told reporters that the decision of the parliament was the expected decision.
Erdogan said that the government only asked the parliament to grant authorization to send soldiers to a foreign country and the parliament granted that authorization by a majority.
''The rest depends on our steps to be taken as a result of our continuous consultations with the General Staff and the Presidency,'' Erdogan noted.
Erdogan drew attention that the decision that had come out of the parliament was not a decision which would be put into practice immediately.
A high-level summit was not on their agenda right now, Erdogan stated.
Asked if Turkey had a contact with the United States after the decision was taken, Erdogan said that he came to the Presidential Palace immediately after the vote and he did not have any contact with the United States.
Replying to another question, Erdogan recalled that Iraq was the neighbor of Turkey in the past, today and future and said that developments in Iraq had saddened them from the outset.
Erdogan added, ''it is not possible for us to be insensitive to negative developments there. We only think of happiness and tranquility of Iraqi people. We are in an effort to find the answer to the question how we can help an Iraq, which doesn't have water, electricity and infrastructure and which continues its preparations for becoming a democratic state of law despite all these deficiencies. We are trying to find answer to the question how we can contribute to physical restructuring of Iraq.''
(BRC) 07.10.2003