It is apparent that Turkey’s foreign policy in the near future will be shaped around Iraqi developments even though the Palestine question is currently a worldwide hot problem and of special importance for Turkey. Iraq`s importance for Ankara is due to the key role that country will play in Turkey’s oil and natural gas imports in future years and their repayment with Turkish consumer goods exports, as was the case in the pre-Gulf War period. The Kirkuk-Yumurtalik pipeline was closed on August 7th, 1990 under UN Security Council resolution 661 adopted a day before and was partially reopened in 1996 to operate at 60% capacity under the supervision of the UN Sanctions Committee. Between 900,000 barrel/day and 1,050,000 barrel/day (an average of 1 million barrel/day) are being pumped now and Turkey has decided to run it at full capacity in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 1284 passed in December 1999, easing these restrictions. If the Ecevit Goverment passes the official decree about this operation running at full capacity, payments may have to be made directly to Iraq which constitutes a touchy question between Turkey and Iraq, on one hand, and Turkey and the United States, on the other. Hitherto, the payments for the $6 billion crude oil exports Iraq was allowed to make in six-monthly periods have been paid to the UN Sanctions Office and nearly half (43%) of these payments are retained by the UN as war indemnities (30%) and income for Northern Iraq (13%).

Using the pipeline to its full capacity also necessitates the completion of the telecommunication system and automation of the pipeline and pumps on the Iraqi side. Improvements on the Turkish side have already been completed. Because the Americans object to supplying Iraq with Pentium II and III computers under the outgoing sanctions this constitutes another bone of contention between Ankara and Washington. Having lost $35-40 billion from its trade with Iraq during the last 10-year embargo period, Turkey is not in the mood to take any heed of the American objections any more. Preparations for the pipeline to work at full capacity have already been completed by BOTAS and they will commence as soon as the Ecevit Government makes its final decision.

In addition to over 70 million ton/year crude oil that will be pumped through the two 40- and 46-inch pipelines between Kirkuk and Yumurtalik, preparations are underway for at least 10 billion m3/year natural gas imports from Iraq near the Turkish border. Turkish companies are cooperating with Italian and French ones to develop, process and ship these natural gas deposits in the next 5-7 years with a $10-15 billion investment. These will be the cheapest energy imports by Turkey because they are so close by and the Turkish petroleum and pipeline companies, TPAO and BOTAS, will be partners in the production, processing and shipment of Iraqi natural gas.

Turkish aircraft have begun to transport food and medicine shipments to Iraq. Ambassador Mehmet Akat will arrive in Baghdad at the end of January to raise mutual diplomatic relations to ambassadorial level. Turkish businessmen will be swarming in Iraq before long and the State Minister in charge of exports, Tunca Toskay, will attend the Baghdad International Fair at the begining of November to make the final arrangements for trade with Iraq in the new era. The Government has already allotted $1 billion appropriations for export incentives in the 2001 budget and a sizable part may be spent to promote exports to the Iraqi market.

All these are exceedingly unpalatable developments for Washington, and Turkey’s relations with the United States are bound to be adversely affected. In fact, there is reason to believe that the recent unexpected American initiative to pass an “Armenian genocide” bill in Congress, much to Turkey’s strongest reaction, is not unrelated to these developments. Turkey’s declared counter- measures against the American move such as putting an end to “North Watch” from Incirlik would certainly not help Turkish-American relations. Luckily, the American Government withdrew the motion at the last minute and prevented a harmful escalation in mutual relations.

Most Turks think that North Watch is a good deterrent for Washington against its passing the Armenian genocide bill, but in fact it is not. Ankara has already put too many restrictions on these flights to yield the desired result against Saddam for the Americans. Under these conditions, North Watch has greatly lost its importance for Washington and it is bound to discontinue in a year or two, if not today. Washington has also realised that Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, much less independence, is an impossible dream without Ankara’s cooperation and, under these conditions, a new revision may be forthcoming in the United States about its Gulf and Middle East policies. This new policy is, however, a diplomatic secret for Ankara at the moment. That is why Turkey continues with its future plans for Iraq and the Gulf without much contribution from the United States.

In addition to these totally justified steps taken by Turkey to see to its own national interests, there are other much more radical and longstanding arrangements of strategic importance in store for the Americans and the whole world in Turkish-Iraqi relations. Naturally, it goes beyond Turkey’s bilateral relations with Iraq and concerns the strategies for the entire region – the Gulf, the Middle East, the Black Sea and the Caucuses.

In that respect, the imminent visit to Ankara (between October 23rd and 25th) of the Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, is a most timely development. During this visit Russia will increase its electricity and natural gas exports to Turkey which is pestered by power shortages. He is aso expected to visit Samsun where the Blue Stream pipeline under the Black Sea will arrive in Turkey hopefully next year to ship 16 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas a year. Also, the formation of a joint “operational naval force in the Black Sea” is under consideration and an agreement for cooperation on military technologies may be signed during this visit. The cold war period’s restrictions on the number of Soviet diplomats in Turkey may be lifted for the Russian Federation that is planning to open new consulates in Turkey, starting with Antalya. But the most important part of these talks will be about Iraq and the Gulf.

Motorway to Iraq via the Caucusus and Eastern Anatolia

For instance, North to South transport links for the Gulf, communication, trade and movement of people, goods and services in and around Iraq in accordance with the preparations made in the last three, four decades are likely to be seen soon. The nineties was the decade that delivered a deadly blow to this development because of the downfall of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union and especially the impact of the Gulf War. But the time has now come for the revival of these activities in the light of experience gained by Turkey and all the countries concerned in the last 10 years.

Before the Gulf War, Warsaw Pact trailers, especially the Bulgarian and Rumanian ones used to stream through Turkey to carry Socialist countries’ exports to the region. Moscow’s ambition was to cut down this tortuous route via the Balkans and Turkey by building a direct motorway to Iraq through eastern Anatolia. This was, by and large, achieved by 1990 when the Gulf war killed it all for a decade.

Now that the normalisation of this situation in Iraq has begun, the motorway in Eastern Anatolia between Hopa on the Black Sea coast and the Habur bridge on the Turkish-Iraqi frontier is expected to be re-activated. The bottleneck in this transport route was the 15 km stretch between Sarp on the Turkish-Georgian frontier and Hopa. With effective obstructions from Washington and the West the Soviets never achieved the effective use of this motorway as this 15-km stretch (between Sarp and Hopa) along the coastline was never properly built. Deputy PM Mesut Yilmaz silently inaugurated this route to service last week (on October 18th) on the eve of PM Kasyanov’s official visit. He said they were also extending this coastal Black Sea motorway from Hopa to Samsun.

This will extensively solve the problem for transport to Iraq from the former USSR, but the Americans have not wasted their 10-year embargo period either and have built a strong Kurdish entity in Northern Iraq under the two tribal chiefs, Mesut Barzani and Jelal Talabani, with the end in view of undermining this future danger for themselves. They failed in their policy of having a similar Kurdish entity in Eastern Turkey via the PKK, but the Barzani and Talabani existence in Northern Iraq is still continuing, even though they have not been able to have autonomy or a federal status, mostly thanks to Ankara’s strongest objection.

This Kurdish existence in Northern Iraq under Washington’s guidance is certainly a great hindrance to the North-South transport route, for both Turkey and Russia.

Ankara is, therefore, now planning to open a second frontier gate with Iraq after Habur and it is meant to dodge the Kurdish administration of Barzani. This new frontier gate and transport routes to Baghdad will pass through the Turkmen regions in Iraq. They are strategically located to separate the Arabs in the South and Central Iraq from the Kurds in the North.

In other words, while the Anglo-Americans were busy in the last 10 years building up a Kurdish entity of some sort in Northern Iraq to undermine the future North-South transport route to Baghdad, Ankara was preoccupied backing up the Turkmen existence in the region to dodge the Kurdish barrier of the West. The second frontier gate will bypass the Kurds and Barzani who will loose an income of $300 million a year in transport fees from the Turkish trailers and trucks. While the Saddam Administration used to suppress and try to assimilate the Turkmen in the past, it is now holding on to them as loyal citizens of the central Iraqi Administration and Ankara is encouraging this trend.