Turkey looks set to cancel a contract with French defense electronics group Thales in retaliation for a French bill recognizing as genocide the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, the all-news NTV channel reported Tuesday.
Officials from Turkey's general staff and the defense ministry took the decision to oust the French company from the project, estimated at some $200 million (€212 million), said the report.
The decision needed to be approved by Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit before it comes into force, NTV added.
Under the contract, Thales — formerly Thomson-CSF — was responsible for installing electronic defense systems on 80 F-16 fighters of the Turkish air force. Turkey's state-run Aselsan firm was the local partner for installing the systems, which are designed to warn pilots of missile attacks.
A Thales representative in Ankara could not confirm whether the contract had been annulled when contacted by AFP . Officials at the Turkish defense industry also refused to confirm or deny the report.
Thales is the second French company targeted since January 18, when French deputies passed a bill charging that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians during World War I.
Last week, Turkey cancelled a preliminary contract with Alcatel for a spy satellite, worth some $200 million, and warned of more economic sanctions in the defense industry.
Turkish Defense Minister Sabahhattin Cakmakoglu said at the time that the French defense contractor GIAT Industries risked being excluded from bidding on the joint production of 1,000 battle tanks.
A delegation from Germany's defense ministry arrived in Ankara Tuesday for talks on the contract with Turkey's Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu and army chief-of-staff Huseyin Kivrikoglu.
German firm Krauss-Maffei Wegmann is in the running for the contract, as are General Dynamics of the United States and Ukrspetseksport of Ukraine.
But members of Germany's ruling Social Democrat-Green coalition have objected to arms sales to Turkey because of concern about their NATO ally's human rights record.
Ecevit said Tuesday that Ankara would re-examine its economic and political ties with Paris after French President Jacques Chirac promulgated the controversial bill.
Ankara categorically rejects claims of genocide, saying that some 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed in what was internal fighting in the dissolution years of the Ottoman Empire.
Armenians, however, maintain that 1.5 million people died in orchestrated massacres between 1915 and 1917. — (AFP, Ankara)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
