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 A
majority of Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) voted on
Tuesday in favor of a resolution which forbids the sale of tanks to
Turkey. "The SPD refuses to deliver tanks to Turkey because of
its human rights record. We urge the government to press other
countries to do the same," the resolution at the party's annual
congress said. A government source said the surprise resolution was
unlikely to have much impact on government policy. "This has no
immediate consequences for the government as there are no decisions
pending," the source said. A row between the SPD and their
Greens coalition partners in October over the sale of a single
battle tank to Turkey threatened the stability of the coalition.
The Greens said at the time they believed Turkey's human rights
record, particularly regarding its Kurdish minority, should bar
Germany from selling tanks there, but SPD Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder accused them of political naivety. "Regarding the
armed conflict with the Kurds and other border violations in the
region, we feel that a further arming of the Turkish army would risk
escalating the conflict," the resolution said.
Defense firm Krauss Maffei Wegmann, partly owned by the Mannesmann
group, was given the go-ahead to send the single tank to Ankara,
which is considering suppliers with a view to ordering about 1,000
tanks.
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