Waiting For Cheney

TURKIYE- Columnist Yilmaz Oztuna comments on the US Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Turkey next week. A summary of his column is as follows:
Ankara is waiting for US Vice President Dick Cheney. The reason for Cheney's visit to nine Arab countries, Israel and Turkey is to address the Iraqi issue. Yesterday Jordan didn't give Cheney the answer he was expecting, but if war breaks out Jordan will act with the US. Cheney got a similar response from Egypt. Anyway there is no state in the region which would say "Lets wage war against Iraq." Ankara will try to dissuade the US from an intervention in Iraq. A war would put Turkey into a Middle Eastern quagmire. Since Turkey was greatly affected by the Gulf War, we should now act very carefully. It is being reported that US soldiers are training peshmergas in northern Iraq. But an independent Kurdish state is not even a question. In such an event, Turkey has said that it would take this as a declaration of war. Our guest Mr. Cheney belongs to Washington's "hawks," the group pushing for a war to eliminate Saddam. Saddam doesn't care how many Iraqi people would die in such a war, even though he could deter the US and prevent the war. It would be enough for Iraq to open its doors to the United Nations inspectors for them to check for weapons of mass destruction. If they did that, the US would stand alone. In any case, the current agenda is focused on the Palestinian conflict.

SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION