THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080376
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY AND DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 106 lines
It looked like a done deal.
Three former Navy frigates were ready for transfer to Turkey. The president had promised that it would happen soon. Hundreds of Turkish sailors had been in the United States for nearly a year, learning how to use the ships, and their government had spent millions of dollars readying the vessels for the long trip to their new home.
But on Wednesday, the last of the frigates left Norfolk not for Turkey, but for a Philadelphia mothball fleet, where it joined the other two. The Turkish sailors, many of whom had lived in Hampton Roads, were back in Turkey.
And Turkish officials were perplexed.
``They offered these ships to Turkey two years ago and Turkey accepted this offer,'' said Mehmet Gucuk, a political officer with the Turkish Embassy in Washington.
``Now the ships just sit there.''
The reason: a running dispute between Turkey and neighboring Greece - both members of NATO, but sparring over the control of some of the hundreds of tiny islands that dot the Aegean Sea between their shores.
Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., a Greek-American and a stout ally of his ancestral home, has enlisted the help of colleagues to block the transfers of the guided-missile frigates Clifton Sprague, Antrim and Flatley.
``The two countries earlier this year were very close to war,'' said Jesse Jacobs, a press secretary to Sarbanes. ``There are still tensions in the Aegean Sea. . . . The senator . . . remains concerned this transfer may further escalate tensions in the region.''
Congress last year agreed to the transfer, opening the way for the Turkish crews to come to the United States. Many of the sailors stayed at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.
The Clifton Sprague, previously based in Mayport, Fla., was brought to Norfolk following its retirement in September 1995. The other two ships, previously based in Pascagoula, Miss., were taken to Pensacola, Fla.
Turkish crews were sent aboard, American sailors training them in the operation of the Oliver Hazard Perry-Class frigates - lean, missile-equipped warships once used by the Navy to escort merchant ships and kill submarines.
For America, the deal was to have been a profitable one. ``It's much cheaper for us, once a ship is decommissioned, to turn it over to a foreign country immediately,'' said a Navy captain familiar with the project.
But the law requires that before surplus military equipment is actually handed over to another country, the State Department must give the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee 30 days' notice. If the committees do not object, the transfer proceeds.
The State Department's notice on the ships went to Congress in March, after an impromptu promise by President Clinton to Turkey's new president that the ships would be moved quickly.
That's when trouble started. Because Congress was about to begin a spring recess, the House committee's chairman, Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, and senior Democrat, Lee Hamilton of Indiana, complained that the 30-day notice had been rendered meaningless.
Congress, after all, could not consider the transfer if it wasn't in session, the lawmakers suggested.
In an April 3 letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Gilman and Hamilton cited a longstanding, though informal, agreement among the two branches that transfers are to be scheduled only when Congress is in session throughout the notice period.
The two also cited ``tension . . . in the Aegean,'' as a reason to delay the transfers.
They were joined April 18 by Sen. Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Acting on behalf of Sarbanes, Pell noted that Greece and Turkey had nearly gone to war in January over the Aegean islands.
``The transfer of modern frigates which have guided-missile capability and would likely patrol these waters could serve to heighten tensions and promote instability,'' Pell wrote.
Pell also worried that under another federal law, such a large transfer of weapons to Turkey would prompt a balancing grant to Greece. A law requiring such balance in the treatment of American allies, Pell said, was intended ``to maintain peace and stability by restraining military transfers to the region, not to provide a rationale for increased arms shipments.''
All three ships have been kept in what the Navy calls a ``hot'' state for several months, with the Turkish government paying to keep them maintained and ready to go to sea almost immediately.
The Clifton Sprague has been kept hot since June, at a cost to Turkey of about $450,000 per month, according to a memo prepared by the service for the House committee. The Antrim and Flatley were decommissioned in May and have been kept hot since then.
According to the Navy, the ships will be kept in a somewhat ready condition for a while longer until the matters are resolved. Eventually they will be mothballed, if Turkey is not allowed to take them.
But the Norfolk-based Navy tug Powhatan towed the Clifton Sprague from Norfolk to Philadelphia on Wednesday. The other two ships were towed there earlier to enter the inactive fleet.
And if they're mothballed, preservatives will be added to their engines, openings welded shut, electronic equipment removed - and it will be ``much more expensive for a recipient to reactivate'' them, according to the Navy memo.
``The Navy is not going to use them,'' the embassy's Gucuk said. ``Either they have to give them to somebody, or make something else out of them - autos, maybe.''
Altogether, Turkish representatives say they have spent at least $40 million maintaining the ships and keeping sailors here. Gucuk said his country can only wait to see what the investment will bring.
``This was a commitment from your President Clinton,'' he said. ``We still rely on the commitment that has been made at the highest level.''
Meanwhile, a congressman familiar with the situation called the breakdown ``a shame, because these ships would have provided NATO some additional protection in that area of the world.
``We'll end up repaying Turkey two-fold for what they've spent,'' said the lawmaker. ``It always works that way.'' by CNB