by HARMONIE TOROS
Associated Press Writer
Oct 11, 2000

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey is walking a thin line: It wants to show its anger at a
U.S. resolution that would recognize the Turkish killings of Armenians as genocide, but
doesn't want to harm relations with its closest ally.

The answer may lie in symbolic gestures like Turkey's announcement Wednesday of plans to
pump more oil from Iraq -- a move likely to annoy Washington, which has been pressing for
a strict enforcement of U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

Others fear public pressure may push Ankara into more concrete measures -- such as closing
down an air base U.S. warplanes use to patrol and bomb Iraq -- and strain relations between
the two NATO allies.

Turkish officials said Wednesday that a team of experts was in Iraq to study plans to
increase the oil pumping into Turkey -- oil Iraq seems unable to export.

Gokhan Yardim, director of Turkey's state-run oil company BOTAS, said he hoped
''pumping will return to pre-sanction levels'' within a week or 10 days.

Turkey used to extract 1.6 million barrels of oil per day from the pipeline, some 600,000
barrels more than it does now, before the sanctions were imposed on Iraq following its 1990
invasion of Kuwait.

But Iraq is currently producing at maximum capacity of 3 million barrels a day, part of
which it exports through its port of Mina Al Bakr in the Persian Gulf. Oil experts say it
cannot pump more to shortages of spare parts and equipment, which are expected to arrive at
the earliest in 2001.

Yardim also said Turkey hoped to import gas from Iraq -- but that would be in at least five
years.

The situation began with the U.S. House of Representatives considering a nonbinding
resolution that would place the government on record as saying the Ottoman Empire killed
1.5 million Armenians. The Clinton administration opposes the resolution.

Turkey says hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed during civil unrest, and Turks
are extremely sensitive when the issue is raised. In 1998, public pressure pushed the
government to threaten to ban French firms from multibillion dollar defense contracts if the
French Senate approved a similar resolution. The bill never reached the floor.

''I cannot speculate on how much pressure there will be'' if the full House approves the
resolution, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz.

Wednesday's announcement reflected the guidelines announced by the ministry on how
Turkey would react to the U.S. move.

Turkey will try to stop the resolution from passing without ''damaging Turkey's national
interests ... and taking into consideration the special fabric of Turkish-American relations,''
Dirioz said.

He insisted, however, that the possible increase in oil imports from Iraq was not linked to the
Armenian resolution and added that Turkey would act in line with its U.N. obligations.

The U.S. State Department said it was checking how the pipeline fits under the U.N.
oil-for-food program, which allows Iraq to sell unlimited amounts of oil if it uses the profits
to buy humanitarian goods for its people.

Turkey is considering numerous retaliatory moves. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has not
ruled out a change in the status of Incirlik, the southern Turkish base used by U.S. planes to
patrol and bomb Iraq. His government also plans to send an ambassador to Baghdad, and is
thinking of opening a second border gate between Turkey and Iraq.

That may lead to the end of ''the honeymoon between Turkey and the United States, with the
issues on which Turkey and the United States disagree on ... coming to the forefront,'' said
Bulent Aliriza of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Aliriza and other analysts noted that most retaliatory moves considered by Ankara seem to
concentrate on improving its relations with Iraq.

Turkey has long complained that it has lost at least $30 billion in trade with Iraq since the
sanctions were imposed.

It also fears Washington's support for Iraqi Kurdish factions will lead to the creation of an
independent Kurdish state and encourage Turkey's own Kurdish population.

Both Turkey and the United States would suffer from a strain in relations.

Washington sees Turkey as a key strategic ally, bordering foes like Iraq, Iran and Syria. It
also wants the vast gas and oil resources of the Caspian Sea to transit through Turkey to
world markets.

The United States is often seen as Ankara's only real ally in the West, and it pressed
European countries to accept Turkey as a candidate to the European Union last year.
************************
The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com

Click Back In Your Browser To Return To News Headlines