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Turkish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said here on Saturday that "there is no need at the moment" to send troops to northern Iraq.
Since Saddam Hussein's regime disappeared, Iraq had been thrown into uncertainty, Gul said here at a joint news briefing with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
It was not a surprise that looting also happened in Mosul and Kirkuk, he said. "What's important is that there should not be massacre or civil war."
As part of the agreement reached by the Turkish government and the United States, Turkish coordination teams were working along with US forces to monitor the situation in northern Iraq, particularly in Mosul and Kirkuk.
Turkey had reportedly amassed a large number of troops along the border with Iraq in a bid to check any attempted separation movement in the Kurds-dominated northern Iraq, which might in turn trigger the Kurds in southeastern Turkey to do the same.
(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2003)
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