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Дата 20.06.2000 20:10:03 Найти в дереве
Рубрики Современность; Армия; Версия для печати

Administration Feels Heat Over Potential Turkish Attack Helicopter Sale

http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/cat/atn0500.html#Administration

Administration Feels Heat Over Potential Turkish Attack Helicopter Sale
In late April a flurry of letters from Congress and powerful lobbies turned up the heat on Clinton Administration deliberations over whether to grant an export license if an American company wins a $4.5 billion Turkish attack helicopter competition.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and twenty-one other Senators sent a letter last month urging Secretary of State Madeline Albright to withhold a license for the 145 attack helicopters until the Ankara government has met certain human rights criteria. The Senators claim that "By any objective analysis, Turkey has failed to meet the [human rights] benchmarks set forth by the Administration."

Also in April, in a letter that alluded to the helicopter sale, Representatives Norm Dicks (D-WA), Sonny Callahan (R-CA), Bob Wexler (D-FL) and Doug Bereuter (R-NE) called on their House colleagues to "strengthen our friendship with this vital NATO ally." The request drew a strongly worded response from the American Hellenic Institute which urged the lawmakers to withdraw the letter because of "factual errors and omissions " they termed "egregious."

Adding more fuel to the debate were a bipartisan group of twenty-nine House lawmakers who sent a letter to the President cautioning that, "Nothing could be more destructive to your efforts to bring peace and stability to the eastern Mediterranean region than this huge arms purchase by Turkey."

According to a Congressional source, the Administration may be wavering from their pledge to block the sale if the human rights benchmarks mentioned in Leahy's letter are not met. The human rights criteria were originally articulated by then-Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz during a 1997 meeting with President Clinton. A year later the State Department developed eight benchmarks from the criteria Yilmaz outlined and, in a series of meetings with human rights advocates, pledged not to support the sale if the benchmarks had not been met.

The Hill source added that the State Department is quibbling with the notion that the human rights criteria are being referred to as benchmarks. In addition the source said State feels the benchmarks are very important but "not the be all and end all in terms of whether the decision is made to sell [Turkey] the copters."

Turkey has repeatedly postponed a decision on the winner of the contract, but Jane's Defense Weekly reported that an announcement is expected in late May or early June. Bell Helicopter- Textron's King Cobra is the favorite to win the award with Ankara also considering helicopters from an Italian concern and a Russian-Israeli consortium.

The Administration will continue to feel pressure from human rights advocates fighting to deny Turkey the helicopters they argue the NATO ally will use against its Kurdish minority. Additionally, the Turkish government has pulled out the all the stops and hired former congressmen Robert Livingston (R-LA), Gerald Solomon (R-NY), and Stephen Solarz (D-NY) for $1.8 million to lobby for arms sales to Turkey.