TURKEY gave the visiting US Defence Secretary, Mr William Perry, few concrete signs yesterday of support in his search for a tightening of military and economic pressure against Iraq.
The Turkish Foreign Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, repeated earlier comments that Ankara would not allow US jets to use the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey for bombing raids on Iraq if Washington requested it.
But Ms filler said the Americans had not asked to use Incirlik, a joint Turkish US base from where Western allied aircraft patrol a no fly zone over northern Iraq to protect the Kurds.
Washington used the base during the 1991 Gulf War but Turkish officials say the alliance against Baghdad has cost Ankara $25 billion in losses from the UN sanctions on Iraq.
Turkey also complains that the no fly zone has caused a power vacuum in Kurdish held northern Iraq that has allowed Turkish Kurd separatists to establish themselves there.
Mr Perry was tightlipped. "They were good consultations," he said at Ankara airport, before boarding a US air force aircraft for further talks in London.
At a hastily arranged meeting at RAF Northolt in west London, he briefed the British Defence Secretary, Mr Michael Portillo, and his French counterpart, Mr Charles Millon, on the outcome of his whistle stop diplomatic offensive around the Gulf region.
One of his aims was to step up pressure on France, which has pointedly refused to back the US's tough stance against President Saddam Hussein.
Kuwait yesterday approved a US request to deploy additional ground troops there. The Clinton administration announced on Friday it had ordered 5,000 troops to join US forces already in the Gulf in preparation for possible military action against Mr Saddam.
A senior Kuwaiti official said the go ahead was given at an extraordinary cabinet meeting, ending a brief misunderstanding with Washington over a US announcement of the deployment made prior to Kuwaiti approval.
An Iraqi official arrived in Moscow yesterday to discuss the US military build up in the Gulf, the official Iraqi News Agency reported. It said Foreign Ministry Under secretary Riyad Qeisi would conduct talks with Russian officials on countering the US "military threat against Iraq".
Iran asked the UN yesterday for help with the thousands of Iraqi Kurd refugees it is sheltering. Tehran radio quoted Mr Ahmad Hosseini, Iran's top official in charge of refugees, as urging the UN refugee agency to "take serious measures" to help the 60,000 refugees Tehran says it is sheltering in six border camps.
A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman said on Saturday in Geneva an inspection team had so far found about 30,000 Kurdish refugees in camps on the Iranian side of the border.
The UNHCR has assigned $3.6 million to provide shelter, food and medicines for the refugees.