TURKEY'S CAPABILITY AND WILLINGNESS TO COLLECT THE 1970 OPIUM CROP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82S00205R000100180002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 23, 2000
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 16, 1970
• Content Type: MEMO

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MEMO FOR: Mr. Harry C. Blaney
Special Assistant to Dr. Moynihan
White House
SUBJECT : Turkey's Capability And Willingness
To Collect The 1970 Opium Crop
In response to your request of 12 June 1970,
we attach a joint BNDD/CIA evaluation. In
summary we find the Turkish government willing
to collect the entire crop and preclude diversion
into illegal channels. We believe it will have
substantial success.
JOHN W. PARKER
BNDD Working Group Member
25X1A9a CIA Working Group Member
Chairman, Working Group
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The Size of the 1970 Crop
Production of poppy has declined in recent
years, thus making it easier for the Turkish
government to collect the entire crop. Legal
production of poppy is that part of the crop pur-
chased from the farmer by the Turkish government
monopoly in order to meet contractual obligations
for medicinal exports. The remainder of the crop
goes into illicit market channels and is directed
westward to Europe and North America and eastward
to Iran. We believe both licit and illicit pro-
duction have declined. Licit production in Turkey
fell from 156 metric tons in 1967 to 115 tons in
1969. For 1970 the preliminary Turkish assess-
ment -- made before the launching of the present
program to purchase the entire crop -- indicated
that 76 tons would be procured for legal export
purposes.
Estimates of illicit production vary greatly --
some put it at two or three times greater than
government procurement. We believe that licit and
illicit production have been of an equal order of
magnitude. Such an estimate is consistent with
the relatively firm data on acreage and the best
US judgment on the yields likely to be obtained
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by Turkish farmers given the fertility of the soil
and the agricultural techniques applied. For 1970
the government
policy to institute preclusive buying of the illicit
crop has doubled the Turkish government's monopoly
purchase target from 76 to 150 tons, a figure which
could fall short of the entire crop but probably not
by very much. An illicit 1970 crop of 75 tons
appears to make sense in view of recent trends ob-
served in the international flows of illicit opium
traffic. Increasingly it appears that the vast
Iranian market has been supplied by opium smuggled
from West Pakistan and Afghanistan, and possibly
even from India. Demand in the illicit western
markets has probably been absorbing about 60 tons
of opium annually -- that is, the amount required
to produce six tons of heroin.
The Program to Collect the 1970 Crop
The current program to collect the entire crop
represents an unprecedented extension of Turkish
governmental regulation over the production of opium.
Historically the Turkish government has been reluc-
tant to assert any authority beyond that required to
meet collection requirements for legal exports.
Turkey would not enter into international agreements
to control opium production under UN aegis until
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1961, when failure to do so would have threatened
its exclusion from the legal world export market.
After acceding to them, however, Ankara in fact
took no steps to impose the licensing regulation
of domestic production stipulated by these inter-
national control agreements.
The immediate background for the current opium
collection program dates to the 1967 oral agreement
between Mr. Demirel and Ambassador Hart, according
to which Turkey was to phase out opium production
over a three- or four-year period. The successive
annual reductions in the number of opium-producing
provinces followed this oral understanding. Also
subsequent to the Hart-Demirel agreement, the US-
Turkey Agricultural Development and Control Loan
Agreement was signed, launching programs to assist
farmers in crop substitution and to establish nar-
cotics law enforcement groups within the Jandarma
and the Turkish National Police.
Accomplishments directly supportive of the 1970
crop collection effort may be listed as follows:
1.
Mr. Demirel personally initiated the effort on
29 May 1970 by instructing the crop purchasing
monopoly to act at once to buy up the entire crop.
He will reportedly make additional. funds available
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as needed. He also planned,
M to instruct the Ministers of Interior and
Agriculture to make new efforts to control diversion.
2. On 2 June, provincial governors were in-
structed by correspondence through the Ministry of
Interior to cooperate with the Ministry of Agri-
culture, the state purchasing monopoly, the Jandarma,
and the Turkish National Police in their campaign to
procure the entire crop, prevent diversion to illicit
markets, and suppress unauthorized production.
3. There has been improved liaison and coop-
eration between Turkish and Iranian border control
groups resulting in increased seizures of narcotics
contraband and apprehension of smugglers.
4. The suppression of production in provinces
where opium cultivation has been prohibited has
been successful, according to agents of the Bureau
of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs working in the
field with the Jandarma and Turkish National Police
forces.
5. Training and equipping of the first one-
third of a total of 750 men in the Jandarma and
Turkish National Police narcotics law enforcement
units has been completed, and these men are now
in the field to reinforce the buying efforts of
the Turkish government monopoly.
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6. A six-man task force of the Bureau of Nar-
cotics and Dangerous Drugs is actively participating
in the field with Turkish enforcement groups charged
with suppressing illicit marketing and production.
7. The intensity of enforcement efforts to
control smuggling both across land borders and
through ocean harbors has been stepped up.
Indications of Turkish Sincerity
The economic stake in opium production to the
Turkish government is not a significant issue.
Even if the current market holds up at $15 per
kilogram for raw opium, 150 tons will yield foreign
exchange earnings of only $2.25 million. However,
other problems relating to political and cultural
involvement with opium production have the potential
of making an explosive issue of the 1970 crop col-
lection effort. In particular, continuing political
support for Demire.l by the Anatolian farmers is
crucial to maintaining his narrow majority.
Nevertheless, the Turkish government has been
making no effort to hedge its position with excuses
concerning the difficulties in controlling the
crop. Further, it has invited agents of the Bureau
of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to participate
directly in the control program, and to date there
is no indication of political interference in the
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development of the control mechanisms or in the
scope of their activities.
Thus the actions taken so far by Mr. Demirel
and his responsible ministers directly support his
word that he would buy up the crop. His instruc-
tions and his actions that follow from them will
commit him to the program personally and visibly
to his constituency -- supporters and enemies alike.
By undertaking to collect the entire crop, a task
never tried before by Turkish government organs, he
takes on risks to his political fortunes that would, 25X6D
outweigh expected gains.
His political image at home
will become hostage in part to the ability of the
government monopoly to negotiate effectively and
amicably with the farmers in the producing areas.
Mr. Demirel's principal gain from a successful
collection effort would be a boost to his political
prestige. But he must succeed completely or nearly
completely if h.e is to avoid the displeasure and
possible sanctions of the US government. On the
basis of action conforming to promise and willingness
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to accept risks to honor the commitment, Mr.
Demirel appears to score well. on sincerity.
Crop Collection Capabilities
The question of success of Turkish government
efforts to gather up the 1970 opium crop will
finally be resolved by the programs directed at
influencing the farmers.
The Turkish peasant is reputed to be generally
honest and law abiding. Projecting US experience
with regulatory programs to the situation with
Turkish opium producers, we would expect about 70%
of the farmers to comply with whatever laws the
Turkish government decides are desirable and useful.
Another 25% will cease profitable illegal activities
when there is enough enforcement activity to pose
a continuous threat. About 5% will violate the law
if the opportunity presents itself and the profit
motivation can be satisfactorily equated with the
risk.
Turkish law enforcement agencies
usually do what they are told,
one way or another. There are about 24,000 Turkish
National Police and 75,000 Jandarma personnel per-
forming law enforcement tasks, Special narcotics
law enforcement groups consisting of 420 Turkish
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National Police and 330 Jandarma officers are in
the process of activation. Two hundred and fifty
experienced officers have received special training
and are now operating to suppress illicit produc-
tion and smuggling of narcotics.
The Turkish agricultural monopoly which is
responsible for buying up all of the opium produced
is directed by a Mr. Karaelmas who, according to an
estimate of the US Department of Agriculture, is
the foremost agricultural civil servant in the
country, is honest, and is an accomplished admin-
istrator. Further, he is a long-
time associate of Prime Minister Demirel, and is
said to enjoy the latter's trust and confidence.
On the basis of past Turkish performance with
tobacco and wheat, the US Department of Agriculture
also estimates that Karaelmas can carry out a suc-
cessful opium collection program if he is authorized
to do so. The Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and
related organizations maintain intimate contact
with the farmers and have personnel stationed
throughout the country for the purpose of monop-
olizing such crops as wheat and tobacco. These
personnel, already in place, can provide the needed
emphasis for control of the opium crop. Agents of
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the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs working
with Turkish National Police and Jandarma officers
reported no evidence of illicit cultivation of
poppies on the basis of surveillance that included
more than three weeks of overflights of the provinces
where opium production has been prohibited.
Past smuggling of Turkish opium and/or morphine
base to clandestine laboratories in Europe centering
in the Marseilles area has been mainly through
Lebanon or from Istanbul by ship. These routes are
being subjected to increased surveillance by Turkish,
French, and US enforcement officers with presumable
success, indicated by increasing use of land routes
through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Those efforts
complement the improved border security between
Turkey and Iran resulting in increasing seizures
of opium there. in the fall of 1969, Iran began
executing narcotics smugglers and to date has shot
or hanged more than 26. The Syrian border with Turkey
is heavily mined and patrolled, requiring smugglers
to find routes around these barriers.
Conclusions
On the basis of Demirel's instruction to Tur-
kish officials to exercise the initiatives necessary
to gather the 1970 crop and the progress to date of
enforcement and agricultural programs toward this
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end, we must conclude that Turkish control efforts
will succeed to a substantial degree. Despite the
Turkish history of non-compliance with international
control efforts, Turkey has for the first time
brought together the necessary elements to accom-
plish control. Given the continued determination
on the part of the Turkish government, evidenced
by implementation of control programs, diversion
of Turkish opium to Iran, Western Europe, and the
United States will be substantially halted. This
development will force the illicit traffic into
greater reliance on sources such as Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Southeast Asia.
While it is impossible to evaluate the success
of this program until it is completed, we must
regard the establishment of control mechanisms --
in particular of police enforcement units -- as
significant progress toward permanent control of
diversion to the illicit market. Thus even if some
minor portion eludes control, the chances appear
good to very good that most of the Turkish supply
to the illicit markets of Western Europe and North
America can be cut off. In that event, of course,
decisive steps against illicit movement from other
potential sources of supply would become the first
order of business.
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Implications
If the Turkish collection effort against the
1970 opium crop is successful, it can then be
anticipated that Ankara will urge that continued
Turkish production of opium under controlled condi-
tions constitutes a desirable resolution of past
problems. Citing the presumed success of the 1970
collection effort, Demirel could argue that Turkish
production would no longer be a source for the
illicit market. Production henceforth would be
strictly for domestic medicinal use and legal
medicinal exports. The reported statements of
officials in the state crop purchasing monopoly
and recent remarks of Foreign Minister Caglayangill
to US officials strongly indicate bureaucratic
support for this position.
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