Turkey Thumbs Nose at US Iran Blockade

[seafan]

Source: Prensa Latina

Istanbul, Oct 4 (Prensa Latina) Turkey will invest $3.5 billion to extract Iranian gas despite US opposition, informed the Energy Ministry on Thursday.

In its text the ministry noted Washington's financial blockade of foreign institutions and investors with business plans in Iranian territory, but Turkey defends its right to freely negotiate energy agreements with its neighbor.

Ankara and Teheran signed a deal in July in which Turkey assumed the funding of investments and state Turkey Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) will be in charge of the gas extraction.

TPAO officials said that gas extraction will start once the collaboration agreement scheduled for the second half of this month is signed.

The same sources also showed Turkish interest in the Iranian oil sector.

Read more: http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={40C06C8A-FD7B-474B-A874-7846E2B4317C})&language=EN

[hisownpetard]

1. Re: Headline - Wow, I didn't know that turkeys have thumbs! n/t

[Kool Kitty]

11. I was kinda hoping there would

be a pic of a turkey actually thumbing his nose. ;)

[hisownpetard]

12. LOL! n/t

[bdamomma]

2. yea sure, Turkey is our ally (I am being sarcastic)

Turkey also told the US not to use their air fields for the assault on Iraq either.

[frankieT]

6. Turkey is Iran's neighbor

Maybe they are tired of having their american ally fucking up everything in the region. Imagine US reaction if Turkey asked american airspace to bomb and invade Canada in order to steal its natural resources...

[tom_paine]

3. I can't help but liking the Turkish moxie in standing up to Bushie Tyrants

even though they are making a business deal with Iranian Tyrants.

Watching the New Grand Cheesboard in operation is amusing, but let us not kid ourselves.

There are no villians on the New Grand Chessboard, only a series of competing empires and nations. Either that or they are ALL villains on the Global Grand Chesssboard which BushPutinism has created, andthis is much more likely.

In in either case, one nation has screwed another nation making a business deal with a third nation. Now that America licks the boot of totalitarianism like the most of the rest ofthe world, it is difficult for me to be upset at something like this.

As if I was a Jew in 1937 Nazi Germany, which in many ways, we all are.

[seafan]

4. Same thing is happening with Syria. This will not make Li'l Boots happy.

.....

Weighed down by a behemoth public sector, an influx of nearly two million Iraqi refugees and falling oil production, Syria's leaders are trying to liberalize their economy in hopes of avoiding a financial meltdown.

In another time, the privatization effort might have presented an opportunity for the United States and Europe to use their enormous commercial muscle to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran, Washington's foremost antagonists in the region.

But the United States imposed sanctions in 2004 as punishment for Syrian support of militant Palestinian and Lebanese organizations. These banned American exports to Syria and gave President George W. Bush the added option of outlawing American investment in the country, effectively scaring off American and other Western companies.

At the same time, Iran, the subject of two recent rounds of United Nations sanctions for its suspected nuclear weapons ambitions and a long boycott by the United States, has few opportunities to invest abroad. The end result, Western diplomats and analysts say, is that Washington has effectively pushed Damascus and Tehran into deepening their alliance of nearly three decades.

"It's logical why we have been working much closer with the Iranians," said Mustafa Alkafri, head of the Syrian Investment Agency, a government body. "We're both under the American blockade."

The Syrian government estimates that Iranian investment in 2006 alone surged to more than $400 million, making Tehran the third-largest foreign investor here, behind Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Though exact figures are unavailable, by some estimates Iran has invested a total of $3 billion in Syria, most of that in the last few years.

In September, officials from both countries announced plans to expand Iranian projects in Syria to $10 billion over the next five years, which would cast Tehran as the economic powerhouse here.

.....

Syria, seeking investors, turns cautiously to Iran, October 4, 2007

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. It seems distinguished historian Barbara Tuchman's hilariously penetrating

comment that war is the unfolding of miscalculations can be seen to be true to the power of 'n' in relation to the waging of economic war as practised by your neocon leaders.

[Tempest]

5. That makes three powerful nations with energy deals with Iran

Turkey, Russia and China.

The repercussions of a U.S. attack on Iran will be enormous.

[ozone_man]

9. China could drop our debt.

That would send us into a depression.

[anakie]

8. As do Cheney's buddies at Haliburton n/t

[goforit]

10. We knew this was coming.