TURKEY: The war plans of the Turkish government and Washington were thrown into disarray on Saturday as Turkey's parliament narrowly rejected a bill that would have allowed 62,000 US troops to use Turkey as a base for land operations against Iraq.
Immediately after voting, it appeared the measure had passed, with 264 deputies voting for and 250 against but, after 15 chaotic minutes, parliamentary speaker Mr Bulent Arinc ruled that the abstention of 19 deputies meant favourable votes were outnumbered and the bill rejected.
The result comes as a major shock to the Bush administration, which had been sufficiently confident of Turkish approval that it had started unloading heavy equipment from ships docked for weeks off Turkey's south coast.
It has thrown a shadow over a multibillion dollar US aid package, which Washington and Ankara had been negotiating for months. It also puts an end, for the moment, to Turkish plans to send soldiers into northern Iraq to prevent Kurdish authorities there seeking independence under cover of war.
Above all, it is a serious blow to the credibility of Turkey's five-month old Justice and Development Party leaders, unable to convert their party's overwhelming parliamentary majority into approval for their plans to allow US troops in.
With polls showing 90 per cent of Turks opposed to the war, analysts had expected up to 60 Justice and Development deputies to vote against the government line. However, nearly 100 did, almost one-third.
Looking tired and haggard, the Turkish prime minister, Mr Abdullah Gul, said after the vote that "democracy requires us to respect the decision of parliament. We will evaluate this as a party and as a government."
While the White House declined to comment, the US ambassador to Turkey, Mr Robert Pearson, expressed disappointment at the result. "We had certainly hoped for a favourable decision," he said. "We will wait for further information and advice from the government of Turkey about how we should proceed."
Months of negotiations had already strained relations between the two countries, allies since the 1950s, and US officials warned early last week that ships in the Mediterranean could not be kept waiting indefinitely for the Turks to approve deployment.
Yet, despite reports in Sunday's Turkish press that the government would be likely to seek a revote early next week, Turkey's leaders said they had no immediate plans to send the bill back to parliament.
However, the editor-in-chief of daily newspaper Radikal, Mr Ismet Berkan, said: "If the Americans demand a revote, they'll get it, and it will probably pass."