ANKARA, Turkey -- About 2,000 Turks staged an anti-war demonstration Sunday as America's top general arrived to push for U.S. use of Turkish bases for a possible war with neighboring Iraq.

Some 2,000 Turks protest a possible U.S. military operation against neighboring Iraq, in Ankara on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2003, hours before Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U. S. Joint Chief of Staff, arrives for a meeting Monday with the head of Turkey's army, Gen. Hilmi Ozkok. The polls show that 80 percent of Turks is against a war in Iraq. The banners in Turkish read: 'No to War'.(AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

The protest was part of a weekend of anti-war demonstrations in Turkey and around the world, the largest on Saturday, drawing tens of thousands of people to Washington.

About 5,000 people protested Sunday in Brussels. About 400 protesters gathered outside a military base in Britain to urge their government to not go to war against Iraq. The protests were smaller in Istanbul and other Turkish cities.

The U.S. is pressuring Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, to agree to let it station troops here as it did during the 1991 gulf war. Turkey has delayed its response, and opinion polls indicate 80 percent of the population opposing another conflict next door.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew into the southern Turkish air base Incirlik, used by U.S. and British planes to patrol a "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq. He then went to Ankara, for meetings Monday.

In an Ankara park, protesters chanted "No to war," and "We will not be America's soldiers."

Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press

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