Turkish government approves U.S. troop stationing

Iraq is drafting a response to a U.N. demand that it start destroying missiles that weapons inspectors said are illegal, while Iraq's foreign minister accused the United States of trying to strong-arm the U.N. Security Council into approving a war.\nThe United States and Britain planned to introduce a resolution to the council Monday declaring Iraq in violation of obligations to disarm, U.N. diplomats said. Germany and France, however, said they intended to put forward their own proposals to beef up inspections in a bid to avoid war.\nWashington faces an uphill task to push through its resolution, which would set the stage for war, because 11 of the 15 council members want to see inspections continue.\nThe issue of Iraq's Al Samoud 2 missiles could influence the debate. U.N. inspectors ordered Iraq to begin destroying the missiles by Saturday, because their range has been tested at above the 93-mile limit imposed at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.\nA top adviser to Saddam Hussein, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, said Iraq hadn't yet made a decision on the order. "This is being studied very carefully and the channels are still open," he said Monday. "We will come up with a decision quite soon."\nA U.N. official in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sunday night that the issue is "not negotiable."\nThe range limit imposed by the United Nations means Iraq is permitted to have missiles that could reach neighboring Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria and Jordan - but not Israel.\nEnding a high stakes diplomatic standoff, Turkey's Cabinet agreed on Monday to the deployment of tens of thousands of U.S. combat troops ahead of a possible war in Iraq. The measure is expected to face a vote in Turkey's parliament on Tuesday.\nWashington wants to use Turkey as a launching pad to open a second front into northern Iraq, but the two sides have been wrangling for weeks over the conditions of any deployment _ including billions of dollars in grants and loans to Ankara.\nAppearing at a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Malaysia, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri sought Monday to gather greater support against a U.S. attack and said the United States is trying to start a "colonialist war."\n"The U.S. administration is putting pressure on everybody, it's a carrot and stick policy _ bribery here, pressure there, but I think the conscience of people all over the world has said no to Washington's colonialist war policy," Sabri said.\nFrance said it would put forth new proposals Monday to expand weapons inspections, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's spokesman, Bela Anda, said the two leaders wanted "to develop an alternative to possible other approaches in the Security Council."\nIt was unclear what form the new proposal would take.\nFrench President Jacques Chirac's spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said a new resolution was "neither useful nor necessary" and that weapons inspections should continue.\n"There is no reason today to interrupt the strategy of inspections to veer into another way of thinking that would lead to war," Colonna said.\nFrance will put forward its own proposals that Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said aimed to turn up the pressure on Baghdad to force it to disarm quickly. The proposals include "concrete criteria" for disarmament, he told Le Figaro newspaper.\nAsked about the possibility France would veto a resolution, de Villepin said that was "not an issue," as so many countries were pushing for more inspections. Among others, he mentioned Russia and China, two of the five nations with veto power in the council.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell was in China on the second stop of an Asia trip to discuss both the Iraq standoff and the crisis over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program. Powell was making the case that China should not veto the U.S.-British resolution.\nIraqi President Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, met with Yevgeny Primakov, a former Soviet foreign minister and Russian prime minister sent to Iraq by Russian President Vladimir Putin as an envoy.\nSaddam promised Primakov that Iraq will cause "no hindrances" to U.N. inspectors, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.\nChief inspector Hans Blix's told Time magazine in an interview to be published Monday that "of course they (the Iraqis) have no credibility" and "diplomacy may need to be backed up by force."\n"Inspections may need to be backed up by pressure," he said.\nAt the non-aligned summit, Iraq's Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told The Associated Press Iraq is disappointed with other Arab nations for not giving Baghdad stronger support in the standoff over its weapons of mass destruction.\n"The weakest position is the Arab position," Ramadan said. "There's no official support from the Arabs."\nIn northern Iraq, Kurdish officials warned Sunday of clashes between Turks and Kurds should Turkey follow through on its plan to send thousands of troops into the region in case of a U.S.-led war against Iraq.\n"We will oppose any Turkish military intervention," said Hoshyar Zebari, foreign relations chief of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.