Word: ankara
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...even that it could be fully employed. The U.S. has only about 150 ground-based warplanes left in the area, less than a tenth of those that flew in Desert Storm, and some of those operate out of Incirlik in Turkey. The Turks might never let them take off. Ankara's top priority is to prevent formation of anything resembling an independent Kurdish state inside Iraq that inevitably would try to break off a piece of Turkey; Turkish troops already have exchanged fire with Turkish Kurd + guerrillas operating out of Iraq...
...opened Turkey to the West, bullied his countrymen into embracing free-enterprise capitalism and, in the course of backing the U.S.-led coalition in the gulf war, greatly ingratiated himself with George Bush. During 70 foreign trips, Ozal tirelessly emphasized Turkey's strategic importance. More than ever, he insisted, Ankara is vital as a bridge to the Middle East, a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism, and a force for stability at a time when violence and disorder, already endemic in the Middle East, are spreading in the Balkans and the Soviet Union...
...oust Ozal from the presidency immediately, instead of waiting until 1996, by changing the constitution. But few political leaders would welcome a constitutional crisis when Turkey is seeking to show the European Community and its NATO allies that it is a stable, reliable partner. Says a Western diplomat in Ankara: "Demirel has a mandate not to be like Ozal -- but not to get rid of him either...
...Turkish officials identified the conspirators as members of Dev Sol, a leftist group responsible for killing an American near the Incirlik air base, outside Adana, during the allied bombing campaign against Iraq. According to the daily Milliyet, the group was planning to assassinate Bush in Ankara with a remote-controlled bomb that was to be planted either in Ataturk's Mausoleum, which he visited, or in a parked car that would explode as the President's limousine left the mausoleum. Maps found by police suggested that explosives were also to have been placed under the lids of sewage drains...
...decision to offer the Kurds an olive branch. Saddam was also motivated by a desire to bring calm to the country so as to encourage the lifting of U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq. "The embargo is killing him. He can't begin reconstruction," says a senior Western diplomat in Ankara. "He has to have money if he's going to have any future...