Thursday, October 18, 2007

In Case You Were Wondering About Why We Care If Turkey Gets Involved


Key Oil Pipeline In The Middle Of Turkey Vs Iraqi Kurds Battle
Darryl Mason Thursday, October 18, 2007
Kurds fighting for a homeland that takes in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran have been bombing and killing Turkish military and civilians for years. Hundreds have died. Known as the PKK, the Kurd militants are not usually referred to as 'terrorists' by the Coalition of the Willing or Western media.
Why is that?
If the War On Iraq is now about stopping the terrorists in Iraq, as President Bush and NeoCon media constantly reassure us, then how can they not back Turkey in stopping acts of deadly terrorism from this violent Kurdish minority?
Are they, in fact, 'our terrorists' and therefore untouchable?
Anyway, try not not to be too shocked, but it appears there is a very valuable oil pipeline right in the middle of the current edge-of-war reality on the Turkey-Northern Iraq border.
From MarketWatch :
Neither Turkey nor the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) owns any oil.
But the PKK's stepped up attacks on Turkey and Turkey's threat to unilaterally strike back at their bases across the border in Iraq could shut a key pipeline that runs from the giant landlocked Kirkuk oil field in Kurdish northern Iraq to the port of Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
Given the extensive sabotage and vandalism unleashed on Iraq's oil industry following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the pipeline is one of the few corridors through which Iraq can access the world market to raise badly-needed cash to rebuild its economy. This makes it a frequent target in a region already rife with violence and warring factions.
The 600-mile pipeline's vulnerability is well known. Few barrels of crude have trickled through it over the past four years.
Iraq has lined up contracts to supply about 300,000 barrels of oil per day to tankers calling at Ceyhan, a move that would lift Iraqi oil exports by about 15% from its current 2 million barrels per day. Currently, most of that oil flows to market through the predominantly Shiite port of Basra in southern Iraq.
The Ankara government has long viewed efforts by the Kurds to establish an independent homeland as a serious threat to regional stability.
It's a precarious situation for the United States as well, since most supplies for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan enter the region through airbases in NATO-ally Turkey, and the U.S. can ill-afford further destabilization in the region.
All of this translates into heightened tensions and an even higher risk premium in oil prices.It never ceases to amaze me that we rarely see these kinds of detailed stories on the background to oil-related conflicts anywhere outside of the business and financial media.
If a full-blown war in the borderlands of Turkey and Northern Iraq takes hold, there is always the option of pipelining the Kirkuk oil down across Iraq, through Jordan, and to the Israeli port city of Haifa. But I'm sure someone's already thought of that option.
And just in case the above isn't enough to ponder, try this - Turkey is reported to be forming a military alliance with Iran to hammer the rebel Kurds.
Energy pipelines are involved, yet again :
U.S. ally Turkey and U.S. arch-enemy Iran have formed a military alliance to drive opposition Kurds from bases in northern Iraq they have used since 2004 to launch guerrilla operations inside Iran...
Both Iran and Turkey have vowed to send troops into northern Iraq, but until now evidence of active military cooperation between them has remained a closely-held secret.
"Iran and Turkey attacked jointly on August 16 against our forces inside Iran and against Turkish self-defense forces in northern Iraq..."
Iran has been offering Turkey an economic agreement with Iran in July to build a strategic pipeline that will bring Iranian natural gas to Europe, in defiance of a U.S. led effort to increase the economic squeeze on Iran.
This is going to get very, very, very messy.

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