U.S. ROLE AS TOP TURKISH ARMS SUPPLIER JEOPARDIZED BY DIPLOMATIC, TECHNICAL ISSUES
Selcan Hacaoglu
AP Worldstream
Jun 21, 2006
For the first time ever, there are no U.S. bidders for a major Turkish
arms contract, signaling serious snags in one of the world’s closest
military-commercial partnerships.
For more than 50 years, the United States and U.S. firms have been
the main arms suppliers to Turkey, a lynchpin of NATO’s southern
flank during the Cold War. Turkey, in a rough neighborhood that
includes Iran, Iraq, Syria as well as traditional rival Greece,
has also been eager to snatch up weapons to supply its large army,
which is also dealing with a domestic Kurdish insurgency.
At the heart of the problems today are both diplomatic and technical
issues rooted in Turkey’s ambition to gain control over its military
technology.
Turkey is going through a low point in defense relations with
Washington following its refusal to host U.S. troops for the invasion
of Iraq in 2003. It has actively sought out other potential arms
suppliers, making Turkey’s business less attractive for U.S. companies.
If they last, the frictions threaten to make U.S arms companies
reluctant to support Turkish lobbying efforts in Washington, analysts
and defense sources say.
Next week, firms from South Africa, Russia, France and Italy are
competing for a US$2 billion (A1.6 billion) tender to deliver attack
helicopters to Turkey. U.S. makers Bell Helicopter Textron, Boeing
Co. and Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. did not even offer proposals after
evaluating tough tender conditions.
The new bidding rules included full access to the aircraft’s specific
software codes _ which the United States considers a security risk _
and a written guarantee from the provider’s government that there
will be no political obstacles to the export of the arms. However,
the U.S. government can only seek the consent of Congress for a deal
after the sale is finalized.
It was not clear whether Turks would be satisfied with an initial
letter from the government assuring them there would be no political
problems.
"As far as Boeing is concerned, some of the conditions in the tender
are such that we simply could not agree to (them), and that we felt
would make the program from a Boeing perspective very difficult,"
Greg Pepin, Vice President of Boeing Turkey said in an interview.
Pepin explained that sharing the software was problematic because it
was partly owned by other U.S. suppliers as well as the U.S. government
_ and the other owners would likely balk at sharing the technology
even if Boeing were willing.
"We can’t guarantee that the U.S. government will transfer that
technology, we can talk about the technology that we own but we can’t
agree to and sign up to assuring that these other owners of technology
would do the same," Pepin said. "That was an issue we had, we simply
cannot guarantee that."
Turkey imposed new bidding rules last year, after it canceled a
previous tender in 2004 when a deal with Bell Helicopter Textron’s
"King Cobra," a Turkish version of the AH-1Z Super Cobra used by U.S.
Marines, collapsed over price, technology transfer and licensing
problems.
The new rules empower Turkey to substitute alternative, probably
locally manufactured components such as weapon systems, the mission
computer, avionics and electronic warfare suites, and require the
supplier to integrate other systems or equipment built by Turkish
companies.
"The collapse of one deal is not itself a major crisis, but if Turkey
persists in seeking carte blanche from American suppliers to substitute
its own technology for theirs and asks for impossible terms, U.S. arms
suppliers will not, indeed cannot, bid for Turkey’s business, and they
will likely cease their lobbying efforts on Turkey’s behalf with both
the White House and Congress," said Ian M.
Cuthbertson, an arms sales expert at World Policy Institute. "U.S.
industry will lose business and Turkey would lose powerful allies
in Washington."
U.S. arms companies have been lobbying for Turkey against Armenians _
who are pressing for recognition of killings of Armenians in the early
20th century as a genocide _ and Kurds _ who complain about Turkey’s
alleged human rights violations.
Turkey’s concerns over technological control of its weaponry increased
after it faced arms blockades from several countries because of
human rights problems in its fight against autonomy-seeking Kurdish
guerrillas, while Washington demanded Turkish progress on human rights
as a condition for arms sales.
Many Turkish defense authorities also bitterly remember a U.S. arms
embargo following Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974, when Libya
provided Turkey with bombs and spare parts to operate its U.S.-made
jets.
Today, Turkey is keen on having a sovereign helicopter to freely use,
mainly against Kurdish guerrillas in the rugged southeast, without
taking on the risk of outside interference in the aircraft’s mission
computer or of political obstacles from Washington to its use.
Turkey’s Defense Executive Committee might opt in its next meeting on
June 27 to choose one of the current bidders from France, Italy, Russia
and South Africa _ which lifted an arms embargo against Turkey in
2005 _ to end a decade-long search for Turkey’s next attack helicopter.
The options are Tiger of the Franco-German company, Eurocopter,
Mangusta of Italy’s Agusta Aerospace, Kamov of Russia and South
African company Denel’s Rooivalk.
"If Turkey wants to have a sovereign helicopter, this is the
opportunity," said an official of Likom Defense, the representative
of Denel in Turkey, speaking on condition of anonymity because he
was not authorized to speak to the media.