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Trade Picks Up With Iraq Despite Pitfalls


02:39 AM EST June 03, 2003
The Associated Press


IBRAHIM KHALIL BORDER CROSSING, Iraq

The line stretches for more than two miles: hundreds of Turkish trucks massed at the Iraqi border, a traffic jam that illustrates both the promise of trade and the possible pitfalls.

Shipments to northern Iraq are increasing, but the majority of the trucks still carry food aid purchased with Iraqi oil money as the country recovers from war and chaos.

Traders say they are encouraged by the increasing stability in Iraq and the amount of consumer goods moving into the country has increased following the lifting of U.N. sanctions. But there are still massive problems in trading with Iraq, despite the country's oil wealth and enormous potential.

Iraqis don't have much money to buy imported goods, and drivers fear for their safety in certain areas of the country. Traders and truckers complain of long border delays, with Turkish officials searching trucks for hours.

Driver Abdullah Canimana says that, two years ago, he used to travel to northern Iraq seven to eight times a month, bringing in Turkish cookies and chocolates and hauling back diesel fuel. Now he travels only twice a month and faces long delays at the border.

The stalls, which traders say help account for the huge lines, could be a way of limiting the power of Iraqi Kurds who control the border and run a largely autonomous region that Turkey fears could push for independence. Turkey is also concerned about possible contacts with Turkish Kurdish guerrillas believed to be active in the border areas.

"It seems Turkey is acting with its political views," said Nawzad Rajab Botany, a top economy official in northern Iraq. "Before, there was intensive border trade."

Prior to the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq was one of Turkey's largest trading partners, with trade reaching some $2 billion in construction materials, refrigerators, air conditioners and other consumer goods.

After the United Nations imposed economic sanctions against Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, trade plummeted.

It began to revive when Turkey began to buy millions of dollars in diesel oil from the Iraqi Kurds. That trade violated U.N. rules, but the United States turned a blind eye to the commerce, which benefited both NATO ally Turkey and the anti-Saddam Iraqi Kurds.

The trade was especially important to the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, which controlled the border post and about half of the autonomous area of northern Iraq. Taxes from that oil trade paid some 60 percent of the administration's salaries.

Turkey also later imported crude oil directly from Iraq, bypassing the Kurds.

But the diesel trade largely ended last year and the crude trade ended just before the war, when Saddam apparently began stockpiling fuel for his army's use. That trade also led to long lines at the border.

For the KDP areas of northern Iraq, that was a disaster. The party is so short of money that it has not been able to meet its payroll for the past two months.

But Safeen Dizayee, a top KDP official, said Turkish and Kurdish officials were working to smooth out problems at the border and boost trade.

Canimana said he was encouraged by efforts to increase border traffic.

"It's better for Iraq and better for me. There will be more work," he said. He spoke as he squatted next to a camping stove in the parking lot of the Ibrahim Khalil border post making tea with other drivers as they waited for their trucks to be inspected.

But other drivers were less encouraged and said they were fearful of traveling in Iraq.

"Iraq is not a happy country now," said a driver who gave his name as Omer. "It has no government, and we are worried about security. There are no courts, no law. And if someone attacks us, there is no place to go."

 
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