-Caveat Lector- >From Reuters Wednesday February 3 8:52 AM ET Worried Turks Watch U.S. North Iraq Patrols <Picture: Reuters Photo> Reuters Photo By Mert Ozkan INCIRLIK, Turkey (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes flew unchallenged over Iraq's northern no-fly zone from Turkey Wednesday but concern mounted in Ankara over recent air strikes and U.S. strategy toward Baghdad. Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said he feared U.S. policy toward Baghdad could lead to creation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq's mountainous north -- something Ankara fears could fuel Kurdish insurgency on its own soil. F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers, accompanied by radar-jamming ''Prowler'' aircraft and an AWACS command plane, took off from the joint U.S.-Turkish Incirlik airbase in mid-morning and headed east toward Iraq. About three hours later they swept out of clear skies to land at the base without having faced what have become increasingly commonplace challenges from Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses. ``There were no incidents today,'' a spokesman for U.S. European Command in Germany told Reuters. U.S. jets attacked five air defense sites in northern Iraq Tuesday, returning safely to the complex of huts and hangars near the Turkish city of Adana. While Turkey hosts the planes of its NATO ally, it has increasingly expressed concern that the actions of the guests might work against its own interests. U.S.-British patrols were set up to protect a Kurdish enclave in north Iraq, outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War, from attack by President Saddam Hussein's forces. But Ecevit has shown increasing skepticism about the operations and U.S. policy in general since taking office last month at the head of an interim government. ``The United States may not want to establish a Kurdish state, but events are approaching that point,'' Anatolian news agency quoted him as telling state television late Tuesday. ``It is clear the stance the United States has begun to follow will open the way for the division of Iraq and that Turkey will suffer the most from that.'' Ankara fears such a state on its borders could only aid the insurgency it has battled in its largely Kurdish-populated southeast for 14 years and bolster the Kurdish nationalism that drives fugitive guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan. The conflict with Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which uses the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq as a staging post for attacks on Turkey, has cost more than 29,000 lives. While Ocalan's whereabouts are uncertain after the Netherlands Monday refused entry to a plane carrying him, Turkish officials have hinted they think he is in Russia. Russia denies Ocalan, on the run since a Turkish diplomatic campaign forced him to abandoned his base in Syria last autumn, is on its territory. Turkey said Wednesday its troops had killed 11 PKK rebels in the southeast, close to the border with northern Iraq. Wednesday February 3 3:00 PM ET UN Won't Let Americans And Britons Work In Iraq <Picture: Reuters Photo> Reuters Photo By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations said Wednesday it would no longer allow Americans and Britons to work in its humanitarian program in Iraq after Baghdad failed to assure their safety. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Undersecretary-General Benon Sevan, in charge of security, decided that ``all United States and United Kingdom nationals working for the United Nations in Iraq should leave the country.'' In practice, the order affects two American staff members in Baghdad. But U.N. officials said 13 Britons and one American had left since Iraq in early January ordered them out. On Jan. 5, the United Nations rejected Iraq's directive, insisting it alone would decide on the composition of the staff. Iraq had said it feared for the safety of the Americans and Britons because of ``deep popular anger'' after the mid-December U.S.-British airstrikes. Iraq had made an exception for those working in senior posts in Baghdad. But Eckhard said the two Americans remaining in the Iraqi capital would also leave because Sevan did not think any employees should be singled out. They are the secretary to Prakash Shah, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy in Iraq, and the deputy director of the World Food Program. John Mills, a spokesman for Sevan, would not give details on how the 14 others left the country, whether they were asked to do so by the United Nations or did not have their visas renewed. In Washington, State Department spokesman James Rubin said: ''For some weeks now there has been a discussion of the fact that Iraq has indicated it was unwilling to ensure the security of U.S. and UK nationals participating in U.N. humanitarian and other operations in Iraq.'' He told a news briefing that evolved over time and is ``not some new problem that has generated a new decision by Iraq.'' U.N. legal counsel Hans Corell in a letter to Iraq said it was Baghdad's responsibility under its agreements with the United Nations to protect all U.N. staff. Eckhard said no reply had been received, prompting Sevan's decision. The United Nations has about 420 humanitarian staff running the ``oil-for-food'' program in Iraq, including the three northern Kurdish provinces not directly under Baghdad's control. The program permits Iraq to sell up to $5.256 billion worth of oil every six months to buy basic goods for ordinary Iraqis living under 8-year-old U.N. sanctions. Of the 14 people on Iraq's original list, all but two work in the Kurdish-dominated north, where the United Nations had complete control of the oil-for-food program. Five Britons worked on clearing mines in the north, a program that Iraq dislikes. Two on the list were British employees of the Dutch Saybolt firm, which monitors the flow of oil to Turkey and through Iraq's Gulf port. Saybolt has at least 14 staff in Iraq under contract to the United Nations. Mills said the Britons were on short-term contracts and had already been rotated out. State Department spokesman Rubin also reacted to media reports that Iraq had welcomed the removal of Richard Butler, the controversial head of the U.N. Special Commission charged with destroying Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction. ``This is the Iraqis welcoming something that hasn't happened,'' the spokesman said. He noted that Butler remained chairman of UNSCOM and still had the support of the United States for doing ``a fine job.'' But Rubin acknowledged that because of Iraqi opposition, UNSCOM was no longer able to carry out its weapons inspection and destruction work in Iraq. Via Irish Times WORLDWednesday, February 3, 1999<Picture> Saudi pilots join air strikes on Baghdad ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iraq: Iraq said last night it had confronted aircraft which attacked its air defences and a food centre in the south of the country and that Saudi pilots were involved. "At 11.37 a.m. local time on Tuesday, 20 hostile formations violated our national air space in the south coming from Kuwaiti and Saudi skies. They were backed by early-warning planes," an Iraqi military spokesman said in a statement in Baghdad. "It has been confirmed to us that Saudi pilots have taken part in these formations," he added. The Pentagon said that US aircraft bombed and apparently destroyed a newly established anti-ship missile site in southern Iraq which could have threatened shipping in the oil-rich Gulf. Earlier yesterday, US defence officials said that in the latest of a month-long series of incidents involving US and Iraqi forces, four jets from the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the Gulf attacked the Russian-made CSSC-3 missile battery. Other US jets also made at least four bombing strikes against antiaircraft missile and radar sites in a no fly zone in northern Iraq yesterday, the Defence Department said. "Initial indications are that we hit what we aimed at," Col Richard Bridges, a Pentagon spokesman, said of the attack against the anti-ship missile battery on the Iraqi coast near the entrance to the Gulf. Other defence officials said the missiles, with a range of 100 km, were apparently moved within the past week to the coast just southeast of Basra and could have posed a threat to either US warships or commercial shipping in the waterway. "We have no concrete indication of what they might be used for, but there is always the chance that [Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] could lash out in frustration with such weapons," said one Pentagon official. The CSSC3 missile, known as the "Seersucker", could have threatened shipping across the narrow entrance of the Gulf, through which millions of gallons of oil pass annually in giant tankers, officials said. Iraq vowed yesterday it would not back down on its decision to resist the no-fly zones, which it has declared illegal, and would prevent UN weapons inspectors from returning to the country. Meanwhile yesterday, Turkey's defence minister said Ankara was discussing with the US changes in the rules of military engagement for warplanes patrolling a no-fly zone over northern Iraq. Mr Hik met Sami Turk also said Turkey was ready to react to any Iraqi attempt to launch a Scud missile at tack against the joint Turkish-US Incirlik airfield used as a base for the patrols. Four British warplanes attacked an Iraqi radar site in the south of the country, the Ministry of Defence said in London. The raid, carried out by four RAF Tornados, came as part of a joint operation with US planes against violations of the no-fly zones in both northern and southern Iraq, the ministry said. 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