Subjected to pressure from all fronts on its multibillion dollar attack helicopter project, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit announced yesterday that German-French consortium Eurocopter and the United States' Boeing, competing with their Tiger and Apache models respectively, were eliminated as candidates from the project over grounds that both companies failed to meet technical specifications. Ecevit said that the United states' Bell, Italy's Agusta and Russia's Kamov competing jointly with Israel's IAI have been short listed, and that additional technical specifications from these companies would be required.

The models of the remaining three companies to compete in the project are as follows; U.S.'s Bell Helicopter-Textron (AH-1Z King Cobra), Italy's Agusta (A129-I) and Russia's Kamov competing jointly with Israel's IAI (KA-50/52-Erdogan). Selection of one European and a U.S. company in addition to a Russian one has been seen as a strong indication of Turkey's attempts to stir up the competition further in order to reduce the cost of the scheme. It has also viewed as an attempt to force the governments whose countries' companies are involved in the project to bring more high technology to enable Turkey to establish its own attack helicopter infrastructure.

Ecevit's short announcement came following a two-and-a-half-hour hour meeting held by the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry (SSM) Executive Board which included Chief of General Staff Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu, Minister of National Defense Sabahattin Cakmakoglu and the SSM Undersecretary Professor Dursun Ali Yalcin. Ecevit stated that the short listed three companies' technical documents, which he described as lacking in certain points, will be re-examined, and he voiced his hope that a final decision will be made soon. He fell short of giving any timetable for a final announcement on the project while ruling out any suggestion that political considerations were affecting it.

SSM is at the point of re-evaluating the technical specifications, Ecevit said, adding that "we have not came to a point of making a decision." On speculations concerning the financial sources required to go ahead with the project, Ecevit said, "SSM will to a great extent be able to finance the project from its own sources. Thus there will not be a big problem on financing." Under the first phase of the project, 50 helicopters out of a planned 145 will be co-produced. The whole project is valued at about $4 billion.

The SSM Executive Board's decision to eliminate Eurocopter's Tiger from the running stemmed from the fact that it failed to make a full performance during trials in October in the southern coast town of Antalya. Eurocopter's German partners' delay in sending Tiger for a demonstration due to Bonn's linkage of the trials with Turkey's bad human rights record is cited among other reasons for its elimination.

Boeing, competing with its Apache, was found expensive but favored by many land aviation school pilots. Company officials speaking to the Turkish Daily News voiced their frustration and shock about the decision announced by Ecevit. It remains to seen whether Boeing will lodge a protest with the Turkish government over its elimination from the project.

Again for political reasons, Turkey made a surprise move early last year and short listed all five competing companies in the helicopter project, which was launched in 1997. Yesterday's announcement came as a second short list of three companies, further delaying the project under which the first delivery of a helicopter was earlier scheduled to be delivered in November 2002.

Both companies were also unable to meet Turkey's urgent requirement for about 10 attack helicopters before the beginning of the production. Previously, Turkey was expected to announce two or three bidders as preferred customers, starting negotiations with the first one immediately. But Ecevit's announcement fell short of meeting these expectations; instead, yesterday's decision was more seen as a tactic to further stir up the competition among the remaining three. There are also speculations that a linkage has been established between Turkey's delayed nuclear energy plant project and the helicopter project. According to this theory, a winner in the decision to be made on which country's company is selected in the attack helicopter project will not have much chance of winning the nuclear energy plant scheme. A final winner on this scheme has also been delayed several times.

Another reason cited for yesterday's announcement failing to make a concrete decision was linked to Ecevit's desire to guarantee President Suleyman Demirel's re-election for the second time. According to sources close to Ecevit, if Demirel's election is not guaranteed, Ecevit believes that the government may resign. In such a case Ecevit would prefer a new government to decide on this highly politicized project. It is expected that a final winner of the project may be decided after Turkey's religious feast on March 24 or April at the latest, according to defense industry sources. (Turkish Daily News, Lale Sariibrahimoglu)

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