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CNN Live At Daybreak

Morning Conference Call: Japan Holds Parliamentary Elections; Turkey and Iraq Meet to Discuss Oil Trade

Aired July 24, 2001 - 08:39   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, every morning about this time, we like to introduce to you to our morning call. It's a way of showing you different parts of the world and giving you a sense of what our bureaus around the world are working on, on an ongoing basis. This morning we are going to start in Tokyo with our new bureau chief there, Rebecca MacKinnon. There are parliamentary elections coming up in Japan on Sunday, a real test of the new leader there, Koizumi and his popularity suffering a little bit.

So, Rebecca, what's going on?

REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN TOKYO BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Colleen, normally a parliamentary election doesn't get that much international attention here. It's only a portion of the parliament seats, but this is the first election since the unusually popular Prime Minister Koizumi came to power. He's going against a lot of vested interest to tackle Japan's huge national debt and a decade long economic slump. So if his party does do well in Sunday's election, that will be seen as a public stamp of approval for his reforms.

Now, I've just returned from a trip to an area called Shizuoka, where campaigning is very intense. I met a number of opposition candidates who are accusing Koizumi of being too vague and also say that a lot of members of his liberal democratic party, the ruling party, may turn around and stab him in the back and stonewall his reforms after they get elected on his coattails -- Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: Rebecca, I know people have really had quite a succession of leaders in the last couple of years in Japan. All of them with their own reform message. I wonder what you hear when you're out there. Are people in Japan sort of getting tired of it or do they still have a lot of hope that their economy and some of the fundamental things like the banking system can really be fixed?

MACKINNON: Well, people are optimistic that Koizumi is different. There -- a lot of people we talked to say, you know, it's been a succession of colorless men, old men in suits, very boring. Koizumi is different. He's exciting -- that he has leadership skills that a lot of people here feel previous prime ministers over the last several years lacked.

They're hoping that he can build the consensus that other prime ministers weren't able to do because really what needs to happen is a lot of members of the public feel that the system needs to change, that the special interest groups need to stop getting their pork barrel politics, that there needs to be more money spent on social services. But he has to break through the bureaucrats and get the support of the people to do that. And people feel that finally they may have a leader who has the leadership skills to accomplish something -- Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: All right, Rebecca MacKinnon, thanks very much.

We want to take you now to Istanbul, Turkey where Jane Arraf is going to join us. She's the new bureau chief for CNN in Istanbul. There's an important visit there from an Iraqi minister going on today that she's covering. And this one is all about oil, right, Jane?

JANE ARRAF, CNN ISTANBUL BUREAU CHIEF: That's right, Colleen, it's about Turkey and Iraq and oil, subjects that keep coming up. This morning, the Iraqi oil minister, who's a senior member of President Saddam Hussein's Cabinet, flew into Istanbul. We interviewed him while he was waiting at the VIP lounge at the Istanbul airport and then flew on the plane with him to Ankara, where he's meeting the prime minister of Turkey and other cabinet members.

Now, this is interesting because Iraq and Turkey do a billion dollars of trade a year, and a lot of that is crude oil from Iraq to Turkey that the U.S. says amounts to smuggling. It says it's a contravention of the sanctions against Iraq that the U.S. is actually trying to tighten and its asked Turkey to stop that trade. But Turkey, which is a U.S. ally, has said that it can't afford to stop and it actually plans to increase the oil trade and other border trade.

We went to the border of Iraq and Turkey last week, which is in remote southeastern Turkey and there was a line of Turkish tankers stretching back five miles from the border, waiting to fill up on Iraqi oil. Now, that's part of the reason that the Iraqi oil minister is here. He's talking about strengthening that relationship. And when we asked him this morning doesn't it matter that Turkey is a strategic ally to Israel and allows the U.S. to use its air bases to bomb Iraq, he basically said that Iraq is divorcing politics and economics, which is part of the reason why Iraq is doing better and better and finds itself in the situation of trading with almost everybody 11 years after sanctions were imposed -- Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: All right, and of course, the U.S. has great concerns over any kind of oil movement in and out of Iraq.

Jane Arraf in Istanbul, thanks very much.

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