Kuwait willing to take extra troops

KUWAIT said yesterday it would accept US troops who had been intended to be deployed in Turkey after the Turkish parliament refused to allow them into the country, the Kuwaiti defense minister said.

“If they (United States) present a formal request, we are willing,” Defence Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Hamad al-Sabah told reporters.

Kuwait said it has not received a request to host 62,000 US troops rejected by Turkey, adding any such request would have to be studied by the emirate’s political leadership.

“Usually what happens between us and the allies is that, if they want to send forces, we receive an official letter,” he said.

“We then study it in the military and we send it to the political leadership,” he added, denying Kuwait had already decided to take in US troops who were to be deployed in Turkey.

Turkey is set to lose much of the $6 billion in aid offered by the US after its parliament refused to accept troops for a possible war against Iraq, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday.

Mr Boucher said the aid “was predicated on the cost of involvement in the deployments and so far much of that would not occur if there is not direct involvement with Turkey”.

The Turkish parliament on Saturday rejected by a margin of three votes a government motion to allow the deployment of US troops in Turkey for a possible war against Iraq and the deployment of Turkish troops in northern Iraq.

No new vote is expected for two or three weeks, according to an official of Turkey’s ruling AKP party.

However, a top US military official said a US presence in Turkey would give it an advantage, but added that a war would still be successful even without a northern front.

“We’re going to be successful regardless of what we’re limited to,” General James Jones said.Some 111,000 US troops are already based in Kuwait, expected to be the main launch pad for any US-led invasion of Iraq. The troops are living in and around newly-built desert camps close to the border with Iraq.