ANKARA - Turkey has not received any official request yet about dispatch of the reinforcement troops to Afghanistan to be charged under NATO.
Diplomatic sources told A.A correspondent on Tuesday about yesterday's statement of U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, who said, ''Spain and Turkey, along with Germany and seven other allies which do not have forces in Iraq, have 'excess troop capacity' and can help solve resource problems that have hampered the Alliance's plans to expand its Afghan mission beyond the Afghan capital, Kabul,'' that Turkey had already been making necessary contributions to Afghanistan under the structure of NATO.
They said that Turkey had not received any official request yet about dispatch of the reinforcement troops to Afghanistan.
Noting that Turkey, which had nearly 240 soldiers in the region, sent a nine-member delegation to Kabul for construction of Kabul Airport, sources said that three helicopters, which were requested earlier, would leave for Afghanistan in the possible shortest period.
Pointing out that projects about ''provincial improvement teams'' in line with a call to NATO-member countries, was high on Turkey's agenda, sources said that Ankara was positive about the issue.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan has requested NATO-member countries to send reinforcement troops to provide security backup for September's elections. NATO asked the allied countries which want to make contribution, to give their response as soon as possible.
Sources said that there had not been any works in Ankara to this end.
Recalling that a decision was made previously about establishment of provincial improvement teams outside Kabul, sources said that if teams could complete preparatory works till NATO Summit in Istanbul in June, they would already be responsible for providing security backup for the elections.
They added that dispatch of reinforcement troops for providing security backup in Afghanistan during the elections was not brought onto agenda of Turkey for the time being.
All these issues are expected to be discussed during NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's scheduled visit to Turkey on Wednesday.
(UK-AY) 27.04.2004