To my surprise, the Turkish parliament did not vote today in favour of deploying tens of thousands of US troops on Turkey's soil to attack Iraq, according to a ruling by the Speaker of the parliament. Pro-US, NATO, IMF and even pro-Israeli measures have been routinely accepted by Turkey's parliamentarians for many years, but it seems this latest masterpiece is a little too much for them. Bush and Blair are getting lonelier all the time.

Bear in mind there was an election in Turkey recently, and the Justice and Development Party are in office now. They're basically moderate Muslim middle-of-the-roaders, but arguably a bit less keen on US imperialism than the secular Tories who were in before (in coalition with the far-right). Certainly JDP voters are likely to expect their government to show some independence from Washington!