Turkey prepares to stake claim in Iraq's oil fields - (It's the oil, stupid.)

UK Telegraph ^ | By Amberin Zaman in Ankara

[Happy2BMe]

Turkey prepares to stake claim in Iraq's oil fields
By Amberin Zaman in Ankara
(Filed: 07/01/2003)

Turkey, one of Washington's most important allies against Saddam Hussein, claimed yesterday that it may have a historical stake in Iraq's northern oil fields.

Yasar Yakis, the foreign minister, said he was examining treaties from the early 20th century to see whether Turkey had a claim to the oil fields of the Mosul and Kirkuk provinces, which the Turks ruled during Ottoman times.

In comments published yesterday in the Hurriyet newspaper, Mr Yakis said: "If we do have such rights, we have to explain this to the international community and our partners in order to secure those rights."

His comments will not be welcomed in the United States or the region, where there are considerable anxieties about the likely results of a war on the integrity of Iraq.

While Mr Yakis was careful to emphasise that Turkey had no territorial claims over the provinces, his comments were greeted with anger by Arab diplomats in Ankara.

"He is revealing Turkey's true intentions. They are playing a dangerous game," said one senior Arab diplomat, who declined to be identified.

However, Western diplomats interpreted Mr Yakis's remarks as a further attempt to discourage the Iraqi Kurds from making a play for the provinces during an eventual war against Baghdad.

The Iraqi Kurds, who have controlled the north of the country - but not the oil fields - since the 1991 Gulf war, say that Kirkuk is historically a Kurdish city and should be the capital of the semi-independent state they are demanding in exchange for support in a war against Saddam Hussain.

Such claims have angered Turkey, which claims that Kirkuk and Mosul are dominated not by the Kurds but by an ethnic Turkish group called the Turcomans.

In recent years, Turkey has been arming and training a Turcoman faction in northern Iraq known as the Turcoman Front as its stalking horse in the Kurdish-controlled enclave.

Ankara's top generals have taken turns to threaten to invade Iraqi Kurdistan should the Kurds try to break away from Baghdad. Some 5,000 Turkish troops are already deployed in and around Iraqi Kurdish territory held by Massoud Barzani, the leader of the stronger of the two Kurdish factions controlling northern Iraq.

The troops are officially there to hunt down Kurdish separatist PKK guerrillas who fought a 15-year insurgency against Turkish troops that ended in 1999 after the capture of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

Iraq is home to the world's second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and before the 1991 Gulf war more than half of the country's oil exports were pumped through a dual pipeline running from Kirkuk to Turkey's southern Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

The pipeline was sealed in compliance with United Nations sanctions after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It was re-opened in 1996 under the UN's oil for food programme, which allows Iraq to export its oil in order to purchase humanitarian supplies.

Iraq has repeatedly accused America of wanting to seize control of its oil under the pretext of installing a democratic government in Baghdad.

Turkey's claims to Iraqi oil date back to the early 1920s when the Ottoman Empire was being carved up following its defeat by the Allies in the First World War. Under a treaty signed by the new Turkish Republic and Britain, Turkey was to receive 10 per cent of all Iraqi oil revenues for a 25-year period in exchange for renouncing its territorial claims over Mosul and Kirkuk.

That treaty was suspended in 1958 under the government of Adnan Menderes, the late Turkish premier, as a gesture of goodwill towards Iraq. But subsequent governments sought to revive the treaty.

"Such initiatives by Turkey will go nowhere," said Baskin Oran, a professor of international relations at Ankara University, who has studied the treaties.

According to Prof Oran's own estimates, Turkey is not due any more than £20 million in unpaid revenue stemming from its 1926 treaty rights.

[George W. Bush]

Out of date, I think. Given the huge number of conflicting reports, I'm not certain how reliable any of this info is. I suspect that this was a demand of the Turkish military and perhaps the executive branch, not that of their legislature which is the present block to our deployment on Turkish bases.

Turkey is plainly in political turmoil. I try to avoid being too harsh on them and have actually always admired them as an ally, more than Israel or Britian even. I hope the present period will prove to be the exception to the rule in Turkish-American relations.

But this talk of annexing Iraqi oil under a flimsy Ottoman pretext seems like nothing more than a bid for the Axis Of Weasels and Russia to support Turkey carving a chunk out of Iraq when we attack. I don't think it's going to work. The Turks learned a few times in the last century the price of choosing the wrong allies and doing so for the wrong reasons. One can readily grasp from Turkish writing that those lessons are not forgotten. The question is whether they'll pay attention to history.

Turkey's former moderate and secular governing party would never have floated such ideas publicly, never carried out its negotiations in a way that left everyone looking soiled by it. I question whether the new Islamist party in Parliament is capable of governing or whether they'll be overthrown by the military in the next few years.

It's quite remarkable to hear a Turkish leader seriously speak of annexing or in some other way, seizing, control of any portion of the national wealth of the sovereign territory of Iraq.

Naturally, considering the economic conditions of Turkey, Germany, France and Russia explains a lot about their interest in controlling and exploiting any oil they can get hold of.

[George W. Bush]

Turkey claims that it is opposed to war in Iraq while planning to invade itself.

I know. It's like we've recently fallen through a rip in the space-time fabric and found ourselves in BizarroWorld or something. I think what we're really witnessing is a sea-change in worldwide international relations, something of a realignment that will shape the first half of the twenty-first century. Bush's war on terrorism and terrorist states like Iraq with WMD has merely exposed the conflict more openly than ever.

The Axis of Weasels, along with merely self-interested parties like Turkey or Russian, are fighting to impose an order that will favor their inefficient and outdated economic policies and to try to be relevant internationally.

[Hoverbug]

How about:
Turkey gets one bbl of oil for every U.S soldier that was allowed to stage in Turkey.

[Mortimer Snavely]

This is like saying that Vietnam is now a great place to party since the Communists took it over completely.

[George W. Bush]

You don't seem to be bothered by the idea that Turkey be allowed to invade and virtually annex a large portion of an internationally recognized country and seize a substantial portion of its national wealth.

I'll be very surprised if the Bush administration will allow this to happen. It would be very very difficult for even the U.N. to tolerate it. I don't think there are any examples of a redistribution of such territories or national wealth in First World or Second World countries in decades. The only military and economic powers in the world know that tolerating such things or participating in them has brought on a huge number of wars. Many of the base causes of Balkan and Middle East disputes were seeded by the carelessness and greed of the European powers when they dominated the affairs of those regions. Many of these same countries are now participating in a process that repeats their past errors.

I don't think Turkish annexation arrangements will fly.

[CyberAnt]

I think this is a big mess!

Is this another of Powell's great plans ...??

[Mortimer Snavely]

Just as I am bothered by Aztlan secessionists talking about taking over our southwest and would support any effort to prevent that from happening, telling the UN and whoever else to get stuffed, so too I am bothered by pro-PKK/Free Kurdistan sentiments on a conservative forum. The PKK carries on like the VC did in Vietnam, killing everyone and his dog who disagrees or appears to disagree with them. The Turks are entitled to tell anyone and everyone to get stuffed on this.

It is in Turkey's interest to prevent the foundation of a Kurdish nation, particularly when it will be led by Marxists and other revolutionary socialists whose ideology requires the dismantlement of Turkey, and whose idea of good government consists of three words: People Fear Death.

This is why Turkey has a moral mandate to take control, if necessary, those areas controlled by Kurdish guerillas, denying them the wherewithal to expand their murderous campaign.

[gitmo]

The little Red Hen showed them what she had found. "If we plant these grains, they'll grow into wheat. Then we can grind the wheat into flour and bake a delicious loaf of bread," she said. "Who will help me plant them?"

"Not I," meowed the Cat, with a great big yawn.
"Nor I," quacked the Duck, swimming quickly away.
"Nor I," grunted the Pig, peeking out of his mud puddle.
"Nor I," squawked Turkey-Lurkey, shaking his tail feathers.
"Then I'll do it myself," said the little Red Hen.

...

They get their comeuppance at the end when the little red hen indignantly replies to their request for food:

"Not a chance!" said the little Red Hen. "I planted the grains all by myself. I cut and threshed the wheat all by myself. I carried the heavy sack to the mill and back all by myself. I baked the flour into bread ALL BY MYSELF! And that is how I'm going to eat it!"

[George W. Bush]

I am bothered by pro-PKK/Free Kurdistan sentiments on a conservative forum.

I don't think I've ever expressed any remark favoring Kurdish independence. At most a mere semi-autonomous zone or to have it remain a province of Iraq. Given Turkish and Iranian designs upon northern Iraq, I tend to think that northern Iraq should remain under the control of a new Iraqi government after we depose Saddam.

I honestly don't believe that there is any portion of the American foreign policy establishment that favors allowing this sort of annexation. I hear it nowhere except here at FR among the pro-Turkish faction. There's no reason to believe that the Bush administration has any intent of allowing anything like what you describe of letting Turkey annex northern Iraq and its wealth.

[F.J. Mitchell]

If that oil belongs to Turkey, they should have gone after it a long time ago. This war is against terrorists and terrorist regimes-not oil rights.

Turkey is tossing a wishbone into the works. Too many of our supposed to be friends are proving themselves to be nothing but leeches and opportunists.

With friends like ours, who needs enemies?

[Mortimer Snavely]

"I don't think I've ever expressed any remark favoring Kurdish independence."

Not you personally, but the sentiments frequently infest these threads. Given those posts, and given US plans to arm the Kurds, with anti-aircraft artillery, by the way, and given the principle that the only moral relationships are to the best mutual advantage of the parties concerned, the moral position is, at the very least, a better understanding of the Turks' position.

My fear is of a repeat of JFK's antics in the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam, overthrowing Diem and stting the stage for the eventual Communist takeover of that poor nation. I see the parallels here in the Turk/Kurd conflict, with the US, once again, by not unambiguously confronting and doing everything necessary to destroy a pack of Marxist mad dogs, enabling through inaction the eventual establishment of yet another Communist hell-hole at the expense of an ally, all the while acting indignantly at the protests of that same ally, inferring that she is really to blame for the mess.

[arete]

Turkey is tossing a wishbone into the works. Too many of our supposed to be friends are proving themselves to be nothing but leeches and opportunists.

Our objective is to disarm Iraq. Let Turkey have the northern territory and the oil.

Richard W.

[George W. Bush]

...and given US plans to arm the Kurds, with anti-aircraft artillery, by the way, and given the principle that the only moral relationships are to the best mutual advantage of the parties concerned, the moral position is, at the very least, a better understanding of the Turks' position.

But, Mortimer, don't you see that the current Turkish position is actually forcing us into arming the Kurds more heavily? I have no doubt at this point we are preparing to airdrop or land tens of thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to the Kurds. And this simply would not have happened had Turkey cooperated in its own self-interest and with a very generous aid package.

We do need an ally in the north. If the Turks won't, we'll have to take the Kurds. And it is the Turks who are forcing us to this. No one wanted it. No one wants to arm the Kurds. But if it means the difference in hundreds or thousands of American dead, we'll cut a deal with them for a northern front.

After the celebration of the Turkish parliament's vote, we didn't get a chance to see the celebrations going on in Kurdish territory in northern Iraq. But the Kurds and Saddam are the only ones who have any reason to be happy about it.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Disarming Iraq and removing Saddam is our objective. Aiding and abetting Turkey in the theft of Iriqi oil fields, is not.

[Mortimer Snavely]

"We do need an ally in the north."

What do the 12,000 Turkish troops there constitute, then?

[arete]

Aiding and abetting Turkey in the theft of Iriqi oil fields, is not.

That may be an unintended consequence, but we need to stick to the objective of disarming Iraq. I see no reason for us to involve ourselves with whatever Turkey decides to do that is their national interests.

Richard W.

[RightWhale]

examining treaties from the early 20th century to see whether Turkey had a claim to the oil fields of the Mosul and Kirkuk provinces

Consequences of backing the losing side in war. Greece lost the marbles. Palestine lost some turf. Turkey lost Mesopotamia. Italy lost Libya. Some tribe lost Oklahoma. Japan lost Korea. Germany lost Prussia.

Claims are everywhere. Honoring claims is rare.

[snooker]

>>>Turkey intends to secure de facto control over the extensive oil facilities around Mosul & Kirkuk.

Bet they loose the race to the oil fields with the 101 Airborne Division. You're in Screaming Eagle Country!

Gonna be a lot of roasted turkey.

snooker

[Bill Davis FR]

go turkey go...invade and capture the oilfields and become an oil producing country...

[George W. Bush]

What do the 12,000 Turkish troops there constitute, then?

Something that will be dealt with in the future after we establish a legitimate governmnet in Iraq.

We don't deny Turkey the ability to control terrorism coming from Kurds in northern Iraq. But Turkey will not be allowed to play Saddam in northern Iraq and seize another country's oil. That oil doesn't belong to Kurds or Turkomen. It belongs to the central government of Iraq, just like most oil in the world is nationally owned. No credible foreign policy experts speak of dismantling Iraq. There is, however, considerable talk about preventing regional disintegration. I conclude that only extremely pro-Turkish sources have any sympathy for invasion and annexation of northern Iraq.