So Turkey barters burn victims and their rehabilitation in exchange for nationalistic political cover in Iraq?  If true, such nation is diarrheal scum.  You want that sort as an ally, West, then may your own children experience similar in the years to come.

v^2

Turkey approved Black Sea entry to USS McFaul and USS Dallas for joint training exercises recently.  So why deny an unarmed hospital ship Bosporous transit?  Passage should have been granted for humanitarian reasons immediately upon request by the US.

v^2

In this case the occupants of the White House appear to be more intelligent than you.  They have received Turkish approval to send USS Mount Whitney (6th Fleet flagship), USS McFaul (a DDG) and USCS Dallas (an armed cutter) through the Bosporus to deliver "humanitarian supplies" into Georgia during the next few days and weeks.

To the foresightful, there is, in fact, a requirement for a hospital ship to be stationed off Georgia for at least several months until winter cools things off there a bit.  Nominal Abkhazian and Ossetian paramilitaries are roaming Georgia and raping, looting and murdering civilians.  These criminals very well may increase attacks across Georgia, triggering a desperate response from Georgians and leading to future hostilities between Russians and their Iskander missiles, paramilitaries and Georgians in which hundreds or thousands more civilians get wounded.  With shifting lines and bombardment, an offshore hospital ship could save many lives.

So we're hardly discussing a "cheap publicity stunt."  Perhaps the Turks refused Comfort due to the enormous red crucifixes painted on her sides -- there now, that should keep you occupied . . .

v^2

I hadn?t heard that. It goes against long standing policy.

The AKP ruling party is at loggerheads at the moment over the government?s pro-Islam policy. I suspect that this is a move by them to piss off the Turkish Military. Either that, or there was pressure on them to comply with the US request. Given that Turkey borders Georgia, and that a major pipeline crosses from Georgia into Turkey, The Military REALLY don?t want the US interfering in the region.