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| Axis of Evil |
| Kurds say Iraq cuts illicit crude trade with Turkey |
| 2003-01-24 |
| Baghdad has all but cut off an illicit crude oil trade with its neighbour Turkey as tension mounts over possible U.S. military strikes against Iraq, an Iraqi Kurdish official said on Friday. Energy-poor Turkey meets almost all of its fuel needs through imports and has been plying the cross-border crude trade with Iraq for about two years in technical breach of the United Nations embargo imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. The United States has turned a blind eye to its close ally's sanctions-busting traffic, which also included a once-thriving diesel trade that was halted by Turkey last year. "The trade has been interrupted for the last fortnight with over 2,500 Turkish trucks waiting between our lines and Iraq," Safeen Dizayee of the Iraqi opposition Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) told Reuters. Only 10 to 20 trucks a day are offloading at a refinery in the Turkish city of Batman, down from up to 300 tanker trucks each day, an official at the refinery said.Turkey imported an estimated 2.6 million tonnes of the crude last year. As fears of war hang over the region, NATO member Turkey has sought to boost commercial ties with Iraq, which has the world's second-largest oil reserves. Prime Minister Abdullah Gul dispatched a top cabinet official to Baghdad earlier this month to accompany a trade delegation and push for more business between the Muslim states. Ankara claims it has lost at least $30 billion in trade revenues with Iraq since the Gulf War. It fears another conflict on its borders will cost it dearly in further lost trade. Despite its opposition to a war, Turkey is expected to open its airspace and bases to U.S. forces in the event of an operation against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, accused of building weapons of mass destruction. Washington has signalled it could provide Ankara with an aid package, estimated at $14 billion, in return for its support. Turkish truckers confirmed the near-stoppage and said some of the drivers were returning through the Habur border gate in southeastern Turkey with empty tankers. "The tankers are stranded between Dahuk and Mosul waiting to load," Dizayee said. "Turkey has instructed them to stay put while it tries to sort this out with Baghdad. "There have been no signs of developments," he added. Truckers sell the smuggled crude to the state-owned Turkish Petroleum International Corporation (TPIC) at the Batman refinery. Tupras, Turkey's biggest oil refiner, in turn purchases the Iraqi crude from TPIC. Tupras said earlier this month it expected to buy 2.6 million tonnes of Iraqi crude from the tanker trucks in 2003, in addition to the 2.4 million tonnes it imports from Iraq via an oil pipeline under the U.N.'s oil-for-food programme. A war against Iraq could cost Turkey up to $1 billion in increased fuel costs, Tupras says, as it turns to alternative suppliers to cover the disrupted flows from next door. Baghdad resumed fuel supplies to semi-autonomous northern Iraq after briefly cutting off the flow earlier this month. Prices soared as nervous Kurds rushed to stock up, Dizayee said. Northern Iraq has been outside of Saddam's control since Kurds rose up at the end of the Gulf War. The KDP and its rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) administer the enclave, protected by U.S. warplanes patrolling a "no-fly" zone overhead. "The flow of kerosene and petroleum from the south to the Kurds has been somewhat normal for the last 10 days. It's almost back to normal," Dizayee said. The short-lived embargo has highlighted the Kurds' fragile independence from Baghdad. The enclave relies almost entirely on the government-held region for its fuel needs. Letting the Kurds have their oil, I understand. Saddam is trying to keep them happy and not join the US against him. But, stopping the flow of crude to Turkey is stupid. I'd have been pushing as much oil north as I could, trying to keep the Turks happy. Maybe he thinks they have already made a deal with us and is trying to punish them? Doesn't seem very smart. |
| Posted by:Steve |