"If we do have such rights, we have to explain this to the international community and our partners in order to secure those rights," Yakis

ANKARA, January 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Turkey claimed on Monday, January 6, that it may have a historical stake in Iraq's northern oil fields, a U.K. newspaper reported Tuesday, January 7.

Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said he was "examining treaties from the early 20^th century to see whether Turkey had a claim to the oil fields of the Mosul and Kirkuk provinces, which the Turks ruled during the Ottoman Times," said the Telegraph.

"If we do have such rights, we have to explain this to the international community and our partners in order to secure those rights," Yakis told the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper.

However, the Telegraph said that Yakis's comments were greeted with anger by Arab diplomats in Ankara.

A senior Arab diplomat told the paper that Yakis was "revealing Turkey's true intentions" and that "they are playing a dangerous game."

"Turkey's claims to Iraqi oil date back to the early 1920s when the Ottoman Empire was being carved up following its defeat by the Allies in the First World War.

"Under a treaty signed by the new Turkish Republic and Britain, Turkey was to receive 10 per cent of all Iraqi oil revenues for a 25-year period in exchange for renouncing its territorial claims over Mosul and Kirkuk.

"That treaty was suspended in 1958 under the government of Adnan Menderes, the late Turkish premier, as a gesture of goodwill towards Iraq. But subsequent governments sought to revive the treaty," reported the Telegraph.

Last week, Mohamad Hadi Al-Asadi, head of the media office of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), condemned remarks made earlier by the vice president of the Turkish Justice and Development Party, Murad Morgan, in which he said Ankara must have its share in the Iraqi oil.

"Morgan’s statement increases the complications in the Iraqi crisis and adds more doubts about the nature of the Turkish stance towards the Iraqi people," said Al Asadi.

He described the Turkish demand of 10 per cent of the revenues of the Iraqi oil in the post-Saddam era as "ridiculing the will of the Iraqi people and a blatant interference in the Iraqi internal affairs."

The SCIRI official stressed that the Iraqi opposition forces will not allow any foreign force to take over the wealth and resources of Iraq.

The oil and all the Iraqi wealth is not owned by Saddam’s regime to be distributed as if it was an inheritance after the fall of his regime, he charged.

"The oil is owned by the Iraqi people and no one has the right to manage it except the person whom the Iraqi people choose in a free election after the fall of the regime, "Al-Asadi  underlined.

The Turkish Al Sabah newspaper published a statement for Morgan on Friday, December 27, saying that Turkey should have 10 per cent of the Iraqi oil after the fall of the Iraqi regime.

It added that Ankara had submitted a formal request to the United states to that end and is still waiting for an official response.

In another development, Turkish newspapers said Tuesday that in the event of a war in Iraq the Turkish army wants to send 20,000 soldiers backed by armored vehicles into the north of the country to ensure the security of its border region, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Radikal newspaper said representatives of the armed forces chief of staff had called for the dispatch of four brigades -- about 20,000 men -- into Kurdish-held northern Iraq, at a closed-door briefing given to members of parliament's foreign affairs committee on Monday.

Washington, however, is wary of allowing the build-up of a strong Turkish military presence in northern Iraq, fearing this could spark off fighting with local Kurdish factions and could encourage other neighboring states, especially Iran, to intervene in Iraq, said AFP.

The Turkish government faces a difficult decision in choosing whether, and to what extent, it should cooperate with its key U.S. ally in the event of a war.

Top Turkish leaders have said they also need another U.N. Security Council mandate before they can consider joining in a military offensive.

Turkey also fears adverse reaction from fellow-Muslim countries in the region should it assist the United States.

Prime Minister Abdullah Gul has just returned from visits to Syria, Egypt and Jordan to discuss a possible regional initiative to end the Iraqi crisis peacefully.