TURKEY - Nov. 1 - Ankara To Deploy Troops In Afghanistan.

FM Ismail Cem says in an interview Ankara will deploy 90 special forces troops to Afghanistan. (This will make Turkey the first Muslim nation to join the US-led attacks on the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Ankara's move comes after the Parliament on Oct. 10, over objections from the pro-Islamic opposition, authorised the government to send troops to Afghanistan and to open its airspace and bases to US-led troops. The Incirlik air base is being used as a transport hub for strikes on Afghanistan as well as a staging point for US and British air patrols above northern Iraq. A second base is also being used, but officials have declined to identify it. On Oct. 26, the US asked Ankara to provide the special troops, which are experienced in guerrilla warfare in mountainous terrain after fighting Kurdish rebels for more than 15 years. They are to join soldiers from the US, Britain, Canada and Australia. The cabinet approved the deployment on Oct. 1, with the backing of the military). The elite soldiers will be sent to northern Afghanistan primarily to help train anti-Taliban fighters and to support humanitarian aid operations. Cem says the Turkish soldiers also may engage in combat, adding: "We foresee a framework to keep this risk at a minimum". Western diplomats in Ankara described Ankara's commitment as a major step in efforts to convince people, especially Muslims, that the war is not against the Afghan people or Islam. A Western diplomat said: "This is the best news the war on terrorism has had in the last 10 days". (Turkey is the only Muslim member of NATO and the only NATO nation among the 50 members of the Organisation of Islamic Countries. Ankara's move will be seen by many Muslim states as tilting too far towards the West. Turkey has not experienced the large, violent anti-US protests that have jolted some other Muslim states like Indonesia and Pakistan since the bombing started on Oct. 7. But public opinion polls find that more than 80% of Turks oppose using the Turkish military in Afghanistan. Omer Vehbi Hatiboglu, a leader of Saadet, the pro-Islamic opposition party, said: "Turkey had more than its military power to offer. A more effective weapon was our Muslim identity to explain US policies to the Muslim world, but now we have become a pact member and lost our mediating status"). PM Ecevit said Ankara's action was not intended to harm Islam and Ankara would work to establish a broad-based government for post-Taliban Afghanistan. He said: "Those who portray this campaign as an action against Islam are contradicting the high values of Islam, which is a religion of peace". He rejected a pause in the bombing for Ramadan, saying: "Terrorism has no Ramadan, no flags, no feasts". (Some bankers and financial analysts speculated that Ankara's participation in the US-led war against terrorism could win additional concessions for its struggling economy from the IMF and the US).