Bush Seeks NATO Support In Turkey
President George W. Bush sought on Sunday to bolster ties with vital ally Turkey, a courtship complicated by terrorists' threats to decapitate three Turks unless the country's companies stop aiding U.S. forces in Iraq.
Mr. Bush hoped to use a NATO summit here to nail down details of the alliance's tentative plan to assist with the training of Iraqi security forces.
But he also was getting a reminder of widespread opposition in Turkey to the war in Iraq, its southern neighbor. More than 40,000 demonstrators, some chanting "USA get out of the Middle East," gathered in Istanbul to protest his visit.
Pledging to fight for Turkey's membership in the European Union, Bush held out Turkey as a model for the Middle East as he met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, a day before the summit in Istanbul of the 26-member NATO alliance.
"I appreciate so very much the example your country has set on how to be a Muslim country and at the same time a country which embraces democracy and rule of law and freedom," Mr. Bush said.
"I believe you ought to be given a date by the EU for your eventual acceptance into the EU," he said.
Mr. Bush's first trip to Turkey followed the capture in Iraq of three Turkish workers by supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born terrorist believed to have ties to al Qaeda. The kidnappers threatened to behead their hostages within 72 hours.
Asked at a photo opportunity in Istanbul with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer if the hostage situation had cast a pall on the summit, Mr. Bush said "No."
A White House spokesman, Sean McCormack, said: "We're in close contact with the Turkish government on the issue. It is an awful reminder of the barbaric nature of these terrorists, but their acts will not shake the will of free people everywhere."
U.S. officials said they were in close contact with the Turkish government, which on Sunday ruled out negotiating with terrorists, according to reports.
"Turkey will not bow to pressure from terrorists," Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said, according to reports on private CNN-Turk and TV8 television stations. Gonul reportedly made the comments after a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ahead of the summit.
Mr. Bush is hoping his talks with Turkish leaders Sunday will smooth the U.S. partnership with the only Muslim nation in the Western alliance.
Distrust of U.S. policy in Iraq reaches from the streets to the halls of government. Politicians here worry that if the new government in Baghdad collapses it will destabilize Iraq, Turkey's neighbor.
But among diplomats, there was no mention of the Turkish parliament's rejection last year of a U.S. request to let American troops use Turkish bases as a staging ground to invade Iraq from the north.
Turks overwhelmingly opposed the war in Iraq and Mr. Bush is widely unpopular here. His arrival in Ankara was preceded by a series of protests and bomb blasts, including one Thursday that injured three people outside his hotel and another the same day on an Istanbul bus that killed four people and injured 14.
After Bush's third meeting of the year with Erdogan, he sat down with Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Between those sessions, he visited Ataturk's Mausoleum, a national shrine honoring the father of the modern Turkish Republic.
On a blazingly hot, sunny day, Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, walked arm-in-arm behind a three-person military honor guard into the marbled memorial and watched as a wreath of red and white flowers was placed at his tomb.
Later in the day, Mr. Bush flew to Istanbul to meet with religious leaders and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and to attend a dinner with leaders in the alliance.
More than 40,000 protesters in Istanbul on Sunday waved placards and chanted "USA get out of the Middle East!" under the close watch of thousands of police and a hovering helicopter.
"We want to throw NATO out of Istanbul," protester Dogan Aytac said at the demonstration on the Asian side of the city, across the Bosporus Strait from the European side, where the NATO summit is to be held.
The kidnappers of the three Turks sought to fan the protests, calling for demonstrations in Turkey against Bush's visit.
F-16 warplanes patrolled the skies of Istanbul on Sunday, and more than 23,000 police were called to duty during the summit. Turkish commandos are patrolling the Bosporus in rubber boats with mounted machine guns.
At the summit, Bush hopes the alliance will formally agree to train Iraqi security forces. NATO nations tentatively agreed Saturday to respond to interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's urgent request for military training and equipment.
The agreement is expected to be finalized at the summit, which ends Tuesday.
"Every indication I have now is that NATO is coming together to say that they would be willing to provide police and military training to Iraqi forces," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on CNN.
In Istanbul, da Hoop Scheffer said Sunday the NATO mission to train Iraqi forces would involve alliance instructors working both inside and outside of the country. But he said it was too early to say how many NATO military personnel would be going to Iraq or when they would be deployed.
The NATO offer would be a boost for the United States, which has sought a wider role by the alliance in Iraq. However, it falls short of earlier U.S. hopes that NATO would deploy troops to help restore order there. Sixteen of the 26 NATO members have individually sent forces to help the U.S.-led coalition.
"NATO has the capability — and I believe the responsibility — to help the Iraqi people defeat the terrorist threat that's facing their country," Mr. Bush said Saturday following a U.S.-European Union summit in Ireland. "I hope NATO responds in a positive way because the ultimate success inside of Iraq is going to depend on the ability of the Iraqi citizens to defend themselves."