Parliament had been expected to vote on the deployment later yesterday, but Salih Kapusuz, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party, said the party would ask parliament to postpone the debate to tomorrow.
Kapusuz said the Justice lawmakers had not completed their discussions on the deployment -- a sign that party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the government were having difficulties convincing legislators to back the motion.
Diplomats have been negotiating a multibillion dollar economic aid package aimed at compensating Turkey for any losses incurred in a war. They are also negotiating the future of Iraq and the military command structure in case of US and Turkish deployment in northern Iraq.
Kurds unhappy
The Iraqi opposition, meeting in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, however, said yesterday it wanted talks with Washington and Ankara to try to prevent Turkish troops moving into Iraq.
The opposition, especially the two main Kurdish parties administering a large chunk of northern Iraq, are bitterly opposed to Turkish troops being deployed in the north in the event of a US-led war against Iraq, but Zalmay Khalilzad, US special envoy for "free Iraqis", said at a news briefing on Wednesday that he hoped Turkey would be part of the coalition, implying it would have a role in northern Iraq "fully coordinated within the coalition."
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