THE TURKISH parliament yesterday extended the mandate of a US led airforce that patrols northern Iraq from a base in southern Turkey for five months.
The Islamist Welfare Party of the Prime Minister, Mr Necmettin Erbakan, voted in favour of keeping the US, British and French air forces in Turkey despite its previous strong criticism of the flights.
Mr Erbakan, in coalition with the pro western True Path Party of former prime minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, has been under pressure from Turkey's powerful military and its NATO allies to approve the force.
The planes have protected northern Iraq's Kurds from attack by Baghdad since just after the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
But many Turkish deputies complain the allies inadvertently help Kurdish rebels fighting Ankara to establish themselves in the mountains of northern Iraq.
Mr Erbakan told a meeting of his Welfare Party that the patrols should remain despite his previous strong opposition to the flights. Mr Erbakan said Washington had promised to give Turkey electronic surveillance equipment to monitor rebel incursions along the rugged 331 km border with Iraq.
Ms Ciller's True Path Party (DYP), with 121 deputies in the 50 seat assembly, supported keeping the planes in Turkey. The rival conservative Motherland Party abstained in the vote. The small left wing parties and ultra nationalist deputies voted "no".
Western ambassadors, Turkish foreign ministry officials and military top brass presented their case for Provide Comfort to Islamist deputies in the last week.
Many fear Turkey could be burdened by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds fleeing to the border in fear of Iraqi troops, as they did in 1991, if the allied shield were lifted.
Iraqi Kurdish rebel groups have split northern Iraq into two rival zones despite a power sharing agreement after elections in 1992.
Turkish troops frequently cross the border to fight the Kurdistan Workers Party which uses the areas as a springboard for attacks on Turkey.
Iran, apparently following Ankara's lead, sent its forces into the region at the weekend in pursuit of anti Tehran Kurdish guerrillas.
The Iranian news agency IRNA said on Monday that the Iranian troops had pulled out of northern Iraq after killing at least 20 senior members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).