Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
AP - 23 January 2001
U.S. Offers Use of Syria Pipeline
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic
Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration Tuesday offered to let Syria help Iraq export its oil, provided the
revenue would be used to buy food and medicine for the Iraqi people under a U.N. program.
Syria would have to make the request to the U.N. sanctions committee to designate the 552-mile-Iong pipeline as an
authorized export route under the oil-for-food program, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. The
pipeline runs from Iraq's northern Kirkuk oil fields to Syria's Mediterranean port of Baniyas. The pipeline was opened
in mid-November with a shipment of 150,000 barrels of oil, which a Syrian oil industry source said was not for
export but was only to test the reopened pipeline that was shut down in 1982.
The Los Angeles Tunes reported Tuesday the pipeline is generating at least $2 million a day in illicit funds for Iraq
in what the newspaper described as a smuggling operation, "one of the most flagrant violations yet" of sanctions
imposed by the United Nations (news - web sites) after Iraq' s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The newspaper said illegal
oil shipments also are flowing by land through Turkey and Jordan and via Iraq's sea lanes, but they are "nickel-and-dime"
operations compared with the Syrian route.
S~a and Turke~ ?~posed Iraq in th~ 1991 Persian .Gulf War to liberate Kuwait. Jordan tilted in Iraq's direction
WIthout much cnticlSm from the Umted States, which apparently concluded the kingdom was vulnerable to its
neighbor.
Boucher declined to verify much of the Los Angeles newspaper report, which was attributed to unidentified senior
U.S. officials, Middle East diplomatsand oil experts. "We've had conversations with the Syrian government," and
'~they have told us th~t they do not intend to violate United Nations resolutions," Boucher said. Also, Syrian offi-
CIalshave told the Umted States they have not reached final agreement to import oil from Iraq, he said.
The U.N. sanctions committee has joined with the United States in looking into reports the pipeline was open for
test flows or other uses, Boucher said.
"What is clear is that we would support a request for this pipeline to be designated as one of the authorized export
routes under the oil-for-food program, so that the payments then are made under U.N. control," he said. "We believe
that other members of the U.N. sanctions committee would support that, as well."
BBC - 24 January, 2001, 18:38 GMT
Turkish police chief killed in ambush
Gunmen have killed a provincial poliee chief and five other officers in an ambush in southeastern Turkey.
The unidentified assailants fired on police chief Gaffar Okkan's car soon after he left his headquarters in Diyarbakir,
the capital of Turkey's mainly Kurdish region. Earlier reports described the attack as a bombing.
...
No group has yet said it carried out the killing. Mr Okkan spearheaded a crackdown against the Islamic militant
group Hizbollah last year, and is said to have been on the group's death list.
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said a "meticulous" investigation into the incident was already under way. TV footage
of the incident showed the car's shattered windows and at least one body lying on the ground beside it.
One of the assailants was also reported
injured in the attack.
Alleged links to state
If confirmed, this would be the first time that Hizbollah has killed a Turkish official. So far it has targeted opponents
like the Marxist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Hizbollah is held responsible for several hundred killings over the
last decade.
Its aim, the authorities say, is to establish a strict Islamic state. But a major police operation against Hizbollah last
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