ARMENIAN BILL MAY HURT TURK-U.S. MILITARY TIES
By Umit Enginsoy And Burak Ege Bekdil
DefenseNews.com
Oct 21 2007
WASHINGTON and ANKARA – Rising U.S.-Turk tensions over Iraq and an
Armenian genocide bill pending in the U.S. House of Representatives
may damage the countries’ military and diplomatic relationships but
probably won’t dent arms trade, officials and defense analysts said.
On Oct. 10, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a
resolution calling for U.S. recognition of World War I-era killings
of Armenians in the Turkish Ottoman Empire as genocide.
One week later, Turkey’s parliament authorized military raids into
neighboring northern Iraq to fight separatist Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK) militants, who recently stepped up attacks on Turkish targets.
U.S. officials consider the PKK a terrorist group but staunchly oppose
an incursion, calling instead for a diplomatic solution.
U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration strongly opposes the
genocide legislation, which is backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and the Democratic Congress leadership. It remains unclear whether
the resolution will come to a House floor vote.
"Whether it will come up or not and what the action will be remains
to be seen," Pelosi told reporters Oct. 17.
Said one defense analyst in Ankara, "As long as Turkey and the United
States nominally remain allies and the status of their relationship
does not become a hostile one, which is unlikely, U.S. arms exports
to Ankara through Foreign Military Sales [FMS] should not be affected
adversely."
In the three largest examples of U.S. FMS deals with Turkey, Ankara
plans to buy 100 next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft
worth about $11 billion over the next 15 years, has signed a contract
for the purchase of 30 modern F-16 Block 50 fighters worth $1.85
billion in the shorter term, and is having more than 200 of its older
F-16s upgraded for $1.1 billion.
Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, Md., the world’s largest defense company,
is leading all three efforts.
Neither Washington nor Ankara has given any indication that such
large-scale FMS deals might be derailed by political problems.
But if the U.S.-Turkish relationship worsens, U.S. defense exports
through Turkey’s commercial deals, in which American companies compete
with other international rivals, likely would suffer.
In that case, an immediate casualty could be Sikorsky Aircraft, a
contender in Turkey’s ongoing utility helicopter competition for 52
platforms, including 32 military and 20 civilian ones, worth more than
$700 million, the Ankara-based analyst said. A Turkish procurement
official refused to comment.
Sikorsky, maker of the S-70 Black Hawk International, is competing
with European rivals.
Also, U.S. firms may suffer or choose not to take part in some
smaller-scale, non-FMS Turkish commercial deals, the analyst said.
On the military relations front, Defense Secretary Robert Gates
repeatedly has said that if the Armenian genocide resolution passes
in a House floor vote, Turkey likely would retaliate by cutting
U.S. supply lines for American forces in Iraq.
About a third of American fuel supplies pass through Turkey, Gates
says, as does about 70 percent of American air freight and 95 percent
of mine-resistant armored military vehicles set for delivery to Iraq.
Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the Turkish General Staff, warned Oct.
16 that "our military relationship may never be the same."
Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, director of operations at the U.S. Joint Chiefs
of Staff, said Oct. 16 that the Pentagon already had begun to seek
alternatives to the Turkish route. He said the United States would
be able to find other options, albeit with more difficulty and at a
much higher cost.
Ham also warned that a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq likely
would halt gas and other supplies.
"If the flow of those materials were to be disrupted, it would have
not only a significant effect on the U.S. military operating in Iraq,
but it would have a significant effect commercially to Iraq as well,"
he said.
Still, the U.S. Defense Department remained optimistic even after
the Turkish parliament’s move for authorization for an incursion,
saying the Turks likely would not choose that option.
"I don’t think there is any willingness or any urgency or desire to
have to solve this through military action, through a cross-border
incursion into that area," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told
reporters Oct. 17.
"The Turks are clearly frustrated, they’re clearly angry, but I
also do not think there is a great deal of appetite to take this
next step," he said. An incursion "would be an enormous step, it
would have enormous implications not just for us but for the Turks,
and I don’t think there is any rush to war on the part of the Turks."