ANKARA, March 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The Turkish parliament Saturday, March 1, voted down a motion to allow the deployment of 62,000 U.S. soldiers in the country for a possible attack on neighboring Iraq, parliament speaker Bulent Arinc announced.

"The motion has been rejected because it has failed the muster the necessary majority," he said, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Of the 534 MPs present in the assembly hall, 264 voted in favor of the motion, 250 voted against and 19 abstained, Arinc announced.

Parliamentary sources had earlier said the motion, which also proposes sending Turkish troops to northern Iraq, had been invalidated but this turned out not to be the case.

As tens of thousands of anti-war protestors took to the streets, the Turkish parliament began what was expected to be a stormy debate behind closed doors on whether to allow U.S. troops to use the country as a springboard for a possible attack against Iraq.

"Saying yes to war is treason to the country," an estimated 50,000 demonstrators chanted in the capital amid a heavy police presence, reported AFP.

The debate on allowing the deployment of 62,000 U.S. soldiers in Turkey was closed at the request of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has held a string of meetings with its lawmakers in the past few days to persuade them not to break ranks. Only the result of the vote will be revealed.

But before the session was closed, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) challenged the government in a procedural debate and argued that it would be wrong to discuss the motion before a possible U.N. Security Council vote authorizing military action against Iraq.

The Turkish constitution specifically calls for international legitimacy for the deployment of foreign troops in the country.

"It is not up to the United States, Britain or Turkey to decide the international legitimacy of an Iraq war. That authority belongs to the U.N. Security Council," the party's Onder Sav told the assembly.

The AKP rebuffed the criticism, arguing that the motion, which also calls for the dispatch of Turkish troops to northern Iraq, was not a "war decision", but a request for authorization to take security measures to protect the country in case of a war.

As the debate opened, Speaker Bulent Arinc stressed the gravity of the occasion.

"We are here for an historic session," he said. "We are going to be making a very important decision on a very important issue by taking great responsibility."

However, opinion polls show that 80% of Turks are opposed to the war and tens of thousands of protesters, from academics to family parties, turned out in central Ankara, according to the BBC’s online news service.

They chanted "No War" and "We don't want to be America's soldiers".

The parliament rejected allowing U.S. troops in

It was, according to the BBC, a last-ditch effort to halt what looks like the inevitable, but Turkey needs the economic and political package that it has spent weeks negotiating with the U.S.

Observers say the AKP will be able to muster the simple majority needed in the 550-seat house to adopt the motion despite expectations that up to 60 of its 360 deputies will abstain from voting.

Denying support to the United States could prove costly for NATO-member Turkey. A no vote would leave Turkey without U.S. financial aid to offset any war-related damage to its ailing economy and would allow it little say in the shaping of a future Iraq.

It would also upset U.S. military planning for a northern front against Baghdad, in addition to a main invasion task force from the south.

The U.S. has already made it clear its exasperation with Ankara's foot-dragging.

"We've substantially completed our negotiations with the Turkish government" over bilateral cooperation on the Iraqi crisis, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington Friday.

"It's now up to Prime Minister (Abdullah) Gul and his cabinet to complete the Turkish political process," he added.

Turkey's reluctance to back the United States stems from its bitter experience during the 1991 Gulf War in the wake of which it says it suffered up to 40 billion dollars in trade losses and receive next to nothing by way of compensation from Washington.

Once bitten, twice shy, Turkey this time wants a multi-billion-dollar aid package.

Washington has offered six billion dollars (5.6 billion euros), part of which could be used to obtain commercial loans of up to 30 billion dollars.