Turkey’s Leader Says Sanctions Are Hurting Iraq

President Turgut Ozal of Turkey said Saturday that international economic sanctions against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein are already showing evidence of success.

Ozal said Turkish truck drivers returning to his country from Iraq are reporting food shortages in some Iraqi cities.

“Some of the truck drivers say that people in Iraq are fighting to get more food from the stores,” Ozal said during an interview at the presidential palace here.

In the United States, President Bush on Saturday also said there are signs that the economic sanctions are beginning to have an impact. They have not been in place very long, Bush noted, and their full effect cannot be felt until more time has elapsed.

Meanwhile, Turkish officials said they are tightening restrictions on food exports into Iraq except for humanitarian essentials such as baby food and baker’s yeast. The new restrictions are sure to increase pressure on Iraq, which imports more than $200 million worth of foodstuffs each year from Turkey.

For Ozal, 63, international sanctions remain the best hope for avoiding a full-scale war in the Persian Gulf that could be politically and economically damaging for Turkey and other key states in the region.

Every day that goes by lessens the chance that Hussein will launch an invasion of Saudi Arabia, Ozal said hopefully during the one-hour interview, conducted as he monitored cable television for more news from the gulf.

“Thinking logically,” the president said, “I don’t think even Saddam Hussein will leave Kuwait and attack Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Syria.” But eventually, Ozal said confidently, Hussein will be forced to leave Kuwait because of the international embargo against his government.

He described Hussein as a “clever, intelligent and very decisive leader” who will be hard to dislodge from power.

“He is No. 1 in Iraq, but there is no No. 2, No. 3 or No. 4. If you are in such a position, you get pumped up too high by the people around you,” he explained.

Ozal also said the strength of the Iraqi army, estimated by most analysts to have more than 1 million troops, has been exaggerated.

“In Iraq,” he said, “more than 45% of the population is under 14 years old. We have reports from Kuwait that some of the Iraqi soldiers there are only 15 years old. This is the result of eight years of war with Iran.”

Despite reports in the media of an Iraqi military buildup along its 200-mile frontier with Turkey, Ozal said he does not fear an attack. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why would they divide their forces?”

Ozal has become something of a hero in the United States for his tough--and costly--decision to shut down pipelines that carry Iraqi crude oil exports to a Turkish seaport on the Mediterranean Sea and to join U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

In addition to winning the personal gratitude of President Bush, who singled Ozal out as a “staunch friend of the United States,” Ozal probably advanced Turkey’s hopes of joining the European Community.

Inside Turkey, however, political opponents accuse Ozal of taking Turkey on a “reckless adventure.” Newspaper columnists charge that he is pandering to the United States and the non-Muslim world.

Like his country, a rugged land of 55 million people bridging Europe and Asia, Ozal is a man in the middle. For the moment, he remains a secure resident of the pink presidential palace atop Cankaya Hill in Ankara.

But if the conflict erupts into war, then the future of the squat, TV-loving, free-market advocate could be placed in jeopardy. If war breaks out, Turkey could easily be drawn into the conflict.

Senior U.S. State Department officials, speaking after a visit here by Secretary of State James A. Baker III on Thursday, reported that Ozal agreed to allow U.S. and allied forces to use North Atlantic Treaty Organization bases in Turkey if that becomes necessary for combat operations against Iraq.

Ozal calls this his “calculated risk.”

“I found out in politics and in business that you cannot achieve anything unless you take risks,” he said.

The Turkish leader expects his country to reap benefits from the respect it has gained in the West for his decisions in support of the steps being taken by the international community to cope with the Persian Gulf crisis. His decisions could cost billions of dollars in terms of Turkey’s trade with Iraq.

“The one important thing,” he said during a news conference earlier Saturday, “is for us to come out of this with as little damage as possible and our reputation high.”

During his visit to Turkey last week, Baker relayed a promise to Ozal from the Kuwaiti royal family to “compensate” Turkey for the economic losses it suffers during the boycott. But Ozal also hopes that Turkey will receive stronger support for his application to join the 12-nation European Community.