The Problem of the Radioactive Metal and Steel Scraps in Southeastern Turkey

Kıvanç Sağır - 2006

Arms Control and Disarmament

In June 2005, Demetrius Perricos, acting head of the United Nations weapons inspection program, would report that in 109 centers in Iraq biological and chemical weapons as well as the materials and equipment used for the manufacture of long range missiles were lost. Perricus, in his report, mentioned that they had received no information about by whom and where those weapons and equipment were taken. The inspector took attention to that they could be moved to anywhere else in Iraq, or sold as scrap material.[i] The inspections still continue. What happened to these weapons and equipment?

Six months before this report, on 8 December 2004, an American contractor named Dale C. Stoffel would be killed with his partner in Iraq. The Iraqi people were accustomed to the killings of numerous contractors in their country. So, they did not mind the assassination very much. On a video published in March 2005, the contractor’s identity was disclosed with his CV. Stoffel was the shadow chief of CIA and was known as ‘Arab Lawrence’. He had a very close connection with the Bush family and was working in their name.[ii]

Stoffel was responsible for pillage and transfer to the necessary places of the Iraqi weapons. The total value of the weapons in question was indeed striking: 40 billion US dollars. Stoffel would convert the munitions and the scraps worth $ 40 billion into money. So now we understand that the US intelligence and weapons tradesmen cleared out the depots in Iraq, which were claimed to be emptied by the Iraqi resistance fighters, with the organization of Dale Stoffel.[iii]

There is no certain information about where the weapons, missiles, and other equipment were sold. Yet, Stoffel states in his letter to the US Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the Iraqi munitions identified as ‘scrap’ were under the control of the United States of America, and that they were French, Russian, and China origin. The total value of the scraps was as much as $ 500 million. According to those Iraqis who killed Stoffel, a great amount of munitions was moved to Turkey by the smugglers working under the control of the Iraqi Kurdish.[iv] Supporting this is the Kurdish leaders’ clandestine connections in Turkey. Freedom of import to Turkey of the scraps in Iraq resulted in the shift of some crime organizations into this area. The KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) ruled by Mesud Barzani was in touch with companies in Turkey and crime organizations for the metal scrap importation.[v]

Scrap importation might be a significant source of money for those people who have secret relations. But it is not only for their benefit. Businessmen in Turkey would also like to eat the fruits of this trade. Turkish businessmen purchased these metal scraps 8 New Kurush per kilo in Iraq while they sell in Turkey for 30 New Kurush.[vi] This very unearned income obviously attracts many riches in Turkey.

Turkey meets her scrap need for by importation. Turkey ranks the first among the six most important iron and steel scrap importing nations, which means, Turkey imports more iron and steel scrap than China, Belgium etc.[vii] Until a few years ago, Turkey was importing a significant amount of scraps from Ukraine. But at the end of 2002 the Ukrainian government put into force an exportation tax of 30 Euros per ton of scrap metal. This tax bothered the iron and steel producers in Turkey, who used the scraps as raw material. From 2002 to 2003, the total amount of scrap imports decreased from 1.8 million tons to 681 thousand tons.[viii] The outbreak of the Iraq war led by the US brought about an incredible source of income with so little costs for the Turkish businessman. There are large areas of junkyards in Zaho and Dahuk of Iraq. The iron scraps are carried from these towns to Silopi, and then, sold to the companies such as İskenderun Demir-Çelik Fabrikası (Iron and steel factory). Scrap importation was carried out mostly through Habur, İskenderun and Mersin port.

Those metal scraps imported into Turkey includes tanks, cannonballs, bullets, missile particles, bazookas, anti-aircraft weapons, panzers, wastes of chemical weapons, steel barrels used for production of toxic gas, etc. Most of the weapons were provided to the BAAS regime by France, Germany, England and Russia. [ix]

Authorities point out that these scraps possess toxic chemical characteristics and depleted uranium. Pieces of these materials can infiltrate directly into blood through water, and foods eaten. The pieces can diffuse thousands of miles away. They cause leukemia, cancer, diabetic illness. Moreover, depleted uranium can stand active for 4.5 billion years killing the people and the nature.[x]

In the recent years, there have been a number of incidents occurred due to these metal scraps within the boundaries of Turkey. For instance, in November 2003, a worker was killed by the explosion of a mortar bullet in a wastes junkyard in Palas, a town in the province of Hatay.[xi] Another incident was in an iron and steel factory in İskenderun, another province of Hatay, which resulted in two deaths and one injured. In Dilovası, children are playing games very near to the iron and steel factories, around which there are radioactive solutions of scraps. Besides, in 2004, 23 tons of TNT, which can destroy a whole town, was found in the same province.[xii]

According to a report by TAEK (Turkish Atomic Energy Institution), between the years 1993 and 2003, there were 24 incidents with radioactive materials in total. After the US invasion of Iraq, however, this amount increased to as many as 33 in 2004, and at least 22 in 2005. As a result, importation of metal scraps from Iraq was banned by the Undersecretariat of Foreign Trade in 27 July 2005. This ban, of course displeased many businessmen in Turkey. Yet, it, to a great extent, ended introduction of the hazardous scraps into the country, although there are claims that the importation still continues illegally in very low amounts.[xiii]

In effect, Turkey, under the provisions of Basel Convention, have had obligations to eliminate the entrance into the boundaries of the country of the scraps. ‘Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal’ was signed in 1989 by 130 countries.[xiv] Turkey also signed and ratified the convention on 20 December 1994. The convention aims addresses to “the uncontrolled movement and dumping of hazardous wastes, including incidents of illegal dumping in developing nations by companies from developed countries.”[xv] The convention prohibits transboundary movement and trade of hazardous wastes. Although the convention does not directly name the metal scraps in the text, they should be regarded as hazardous wastes. Thus Turkey, since its ratification, violates the convention.

Under the obligations of the convention, each party state is required to report information on the generation and movement of hazardous wastes. Every year, a questionnaire is sent out to member countries, requesting information on the generation, export and import of hazardous wastes. In the questionnaires fulfilled by the Turkish officials, no incident was reported so far. Hence, some problems with the convention are possible in monitoring the countries.

The convention was adopted into the domestic law by the ‘Bylaw on the Control of Hazardous Wastes’ in 27 August 1995. The bylaw prohibits importation of hazardous wastes into Turkey. Still, it was violated as well as the Basel Convention. Moreover, according to the article 172 of the Turkish Penal Code, those people who take effective part in the process of circulation of radiation as it is possible that it can damage another person’s life, healths, and assets, are penalized from six months to two years.[xvi] Yet, it seems this code is not sufficient for effective precautions.

Hard debates in Turkey still continued after these legislative changes, too. Now the politicians in the Turkish Grand National Assembly are discussing the situation of the scraps entered into the country before these legislative regulations. Such politicians as Züheyir Amber,[xvii] Onur Öymen,[xviii] Nurettin Sezen[xix] have given proposals as to whether all the negative effects of the metal scraps in Turkey have been eliminated yet and whether today the borderlines are in safe enough against any kind of radioactive incident.

There still exists the risk that the nuclear materials might well pass to the hands of terrorist organizations, particularly the PKK, that unowned sources of radiation may be dissolved mixing in the metal scraps, and that, they might be used for production of numerous metal tools used in the daily life, such as spoons, knifes, razors etc. Those places producing these kinds of materials must subject to a very restrictive detection by an official institution regularly.

In Turkey, Turkish Atomic Energy Institute is responsible for the detection of radioactive materials and radioactive devices. However, the authorities in the institute interestingly emphasize strongly that according to the regulations of their institution, metal scraps, be they iron or steel, are not essentially radioactive materials; therefore, they cannot be subject to sanctions, nor detections related to radioactive materials.

It is not only Turkey who faces such problems caused radioactive materials. In Mexico, for instance, a radioactive source was unconsciously to be used in the construction of buildings. Fortunately, the government officials realized the issue, and they had to destruct 814 buildings in the construction of which these irons were possibly used. Another example is from Brazil. Blue colored pieces of radioactive materials found by someone in a junkyard were unconsciously used in the making of necklaces. Four people died, who bought the necklaces.[xx]