- Iraq and Turkey plan to sign a wide-ranging trade and
economic co-operation pact similar to a multi-billion-dollar deal in the
works between Baghdad and Moscow, Iraq says.
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- Turkey, a member of NATO that allows the United States
and Britain to use an air base in its territory to patrol a no-fly zone
over northern Iraq, has been boosting relations with its southern neighbour
recently despite their uneasy relationship.
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- Increasingly belligerent rhetoric from the US, which
wants to topple Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, has worried Turkey. It
fears war on its borders could damage its economy and fuel unrest in its
own restive south-east.
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- Iraq's Trade Minister, Mohammed Mehdi Saleh, met the
Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, in Ankara on Friday for talks that
covered economic relations as well as politics in the region.
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- Mr Saleh said the two countries planned to sign an agreement
along the lines of one due to be signed with Russia that has sparked concern
in Washington.
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- "The principle is to develop a program by which
we conclude an agreement, a long-term agreement, to promote the economic
and trade relationship between Iraq and Turkey," Mr Saleh said.
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- He compared the Turkish deal to the Russian plan, which
Iraq has put at $A73 billion, but he declined to put a figure on the deal
with Ankara.
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- Iraq was Turkey's biggest trade partner until the Gulf
War in 1991. Turkey says it has lost more than $55 billion in trade revenues
as a result of the sanctions that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
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- Although Turkey has said publicly it opposes military
action against Iraq, few in Ankara doubt that Turkey would get involved
in any eventual operation, offering logistical support and the use of air
bases at the very least.
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- Turkey's Trade Minister, Tunca Toskay, who met Mr Saleh
earlier, said political conditions for trade between the two countries
had improved in the past three years.
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- "Our concern is that if a war erupts we will suffer.
Tourism and exports in many directions will be negatively affected."
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- Mr Saleh said Mr Ecevit had voiced Turkey's support for
Iraq's territorial integrity and independence during their talks.
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- Mr Saleh said the two sides would hold a series of meetings
to work out the details of the new economic agreement, which he said would
include oil, gas, refining, electricity, telecommunications, housing, agriculture
and irrigation.
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- Russia, meanwhile, reiterated its demand that any US
military strike against Iraq be put to the United Nations Security Council
for approval. It said it would send a top delegation to Washington next
month to argue against military strikes on Iraq, and demanded firm proof
from the US that Baghdad was stocking up on weapons of mass destruction.
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- In Washington yesterday the former secretary of state
James Baker said the political and economic cost of ousting Saddam could
be great if the US acted alone. Writing in The New York Times, Mr Baker,
who held the position under president George Bush snr, urged the Bush Administration
to first seek to build a wide international coalition.
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- Agencies
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- http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/26/1030053013529.html
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