The key to security remains cooperation with communities along
the way. It was villagers who spotted our car and reported strangers
taking photographs of pipeline activities. "We're glad to have that
kind of concern," said Tuncok. "Local people who work hand-inhand
with local gendarmerie; that makes the gendarmes' job - and ours -
easier." It's helpful, he added, "to have eyes and ears on the spot
all the time."
Iraqi sections of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan line were again attacked in
both January and February, and the line has been effectively out
of action since then.
The need to work with communities on security issues gives an
added significance to
BTC funding for community
social programs along the right-of-way. A series of small projects,
identified by local communities and reliant on local skills for
implementation, accompany the line.
A BTC community consultant, Hikmet Turkay, notes that at Goksun,
a mountain town of some 50,000 people, the townsfolk opted for a
drinking water project, while at Geben villagers chose to construct
a cemetery fence. New toilets for schools are a common choice for
villages located in an area showing real signs of economic growth,
with
construction activities
in even the most remote mountain communities.
PKK resurgence?
It is the mountains that offer a degree of shelter to the
estimated 3,000 fighters of the rebel Kurdish People's Party, known
as the PKK from its Turkish initials. The PKK offers the only
immediate security threat to the pipeline in Turkey. When Turkish
soldiers and officials talk of terrorists, they are referring to the
PKK.
But how big a threat the PKK poses is hard to tell. The
organization's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has been in Turkish custody
since February 1999 and his detention was followed by several years
of relative peace.
But recently there's been an increase in incidents. In late May,
two Turkish soldiers were killed in separate landmine incidents in
provinces adjoining those through which the pipeline runs. The
Turkish military, which has considerable autonomy in these matters,
has beefed up its strength in southeastern Turkey to between 200,000
and 250,000 men to confront what it argues is a revival of the
previously dormant insurgency of the PKK.
Yet it's still unclear just why the military has bolstered its
presence at this time. For while Turkish troops are specifically
charged with safeguarding the BTC line in Turkey, their primary
concern in watching events in northern Iraq does not really relate
to the other large pipeline that feeds Ceyhan, the Iraq-Turkey
pipeline, but to the possibility that destabilization in Iraq could
lead to destabilization in Turkey.
In particular, the Turkish military fears that any collapse of
central government in Baghdad could lead the Iraqi Kurds, currently
operating a reasonably secure autonomous government, to claim
independence for themselves. And were that to happen, the military's
fear is that the Kurds of southeastern Turkey might either move to a
more open military campaign to secure their own independence, or
seek to unite with the Iraqi Kurds.
In recent years, Turkish forces have frequently entered northern
Iraq in operations aimed at suppressing the PKK - including one
operation in 1995 which involved 50,000 men - and it is far more
likely that current troop buildups refer primarily to the military's
concerns at the tense political situation in Iraq, and at wishing to
crush suspected PKK bases in Northern Iraq, rather than any
immediate threat to the BTC pipeline.
At Ceyhan, however, the constant interruptions to the flow of oil
along the 1.7 million b/d capacity line from Kirkuk and Mosul, the
consequence of around 20 significant bombings, fires or acts of
sabotage, bear testimony both to the lack of security in much of
Iraq - and for the kind of security procedures put in place for the
BTC line. Iraqi sections of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan line were again
attacked in both January and February, and the line has been
effectively out of action since then.
Although there's talk in Iraq that the formation of the new Iraqi
government could lead to it reopening within weeks, it's long-term
security really requires an end to the current Iraqi insurgency. The
BTC line, a project in which BP holds a leading 30% stake, should
prove pretty immune to attacks of this nature.
In Turkey, said Julia Nanay, who analyses Caspian export pipeline
projects for Washington-based Petroleum Finance Company, "it's the
Kurdish area that is the problem - but the pipeline is buried." BP,
she argued, has taken account of this kind of security issue and has
done "a practical job in anticipating every possible problem along
the route, so it's not likely the PKK will be able to block
operation of the pipeline."
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