Terror plot aimed at NATO foiled

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Turkish police said yesterday they had foiled a plot by suspected al Qaeda-linked terrorists to bomb a major NATO gathering in Istanbul next month, as Turkey's ambassador to Washington said his country is determined to stage a safe and successful summit.

Prosecutors in Ankara announced that they were questioning 16 suspected members of the Turkish branch of Ansar al-Islam, who were arrested Thursday in the northwestern city of Bursa.

A separate arm of the Islamist terrorist group operated in northern Iraq and was linked to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Authorities said the cell planned to carry out bomb attacks when President Bush and 25 other NATO leaders meet in Istanbul on June 28-29. Mr. Bush is planning a bilateral visit with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the summit opens.

"Unfortunately, we have gained a lot of experience in Turkey dealing with terrorist plots," Turkish Ambassador O. Faruk Logoglu said in an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

The envoy said details remain sketchy on the Bursa plot, but added, "As we move toward the NATO summit, you can be assured that the Turkish authorities will be doing everything in their power to make it a safe gathering and an enjoyable one."

Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim country with a strict secular constitution, already had been on a heightened state of alert after bomb attacks in November that targeted two Istanbul synagogues, the British Consulate and a branch of a British-owned bank. About 60 people were killed in the attacks, which were blamed on an al Qaeda cell in Turkey.

Turkish investigators said guns, bomb-making equipment and forged identity papers had been found during a search of the Bursa group, which reportedly was targeting a local synagogue in addition to the NATO operation.

On Iraq, Mr. Logoglu said Washington and Ankara have recovered from the bitter division over Turkey's unwillingness to support the U.S.-led war in Iraq last year. But he said Turkey remains anxious about efforts by Kurds in northern Iraq to carve out an independent enclave.

Turkey long has feared that such a state could spark a revival of a violent Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey, one that costs tens of thousands of lives before being suppressed in the 1990s.

Although a final Iraqi constitution will be written next year, "all our fears so far have unfortunately been confirmed by the evolving realities on the ground," he said.

On a separate issue, Mr. Logoglu said Turkish Cypriots deserved new international respect for their April 24 vote to support a U.N.-backed plan to end three decades of ethnic division on Cyprus.

The plan was defeated, despite strong U.S. and European endorsements, when Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected the idea.

"This vote means it is time for the reintegration of the Turkish Cypriots, who have been willfully and wrongfully excluded from the international community," Mr. Logoglu said.

He said Turkish Cypriots had voted in support of the U.N. plan in the hopes that their long international isolation could be eased.

"I see no reason under the sun why some of their expectations should not be met," Mr. Logoglu said.