Last update - 02:22 22/02/2008
Tank deal hinges on permits for Turkish workers
By Ruth Sinai
Defense Minister Ehud Barak will seek cabinet approval on Sunday for a deal to extend the work permits of 800 Turkish construction workers in exchange for a contract from the Turkish government to upgrade hundreds of tanks.
This is effectively an extension of an existing deal that expired in December. Turkey requested the extension during Barak's visit to Ankara last week.
The original deal, signed in 2002, gave Israel Military Industries a $700 million contract for the tank upgrades. In exchange, Turkey would benefit from the workers' repatriated earnings, expected to total tens of millions of dollars over the life of the five-year contract.
However, the extension may face a legal challenge. The Hotline for Foreign Workers had petitioned the High Court of Justice against the original deal, claiming that the Turkish labor contractor that supplied the workers was mistreating them, but the state had refused to let them switch employers, thereby violating an earlier court ruling against agreements that bound workers to a single employer.
The court rejected the petition in September 2007 on the grounds that the contract expired in three months anyway. But if the deal is extended, the petition is likely to be resubmitted.
Moreover, the Finance Ministry opposed the original deal, since it wants to reduce the number of foreign workers, and may oppose the extension as well. In that case, cabinet approval is not guaranteed.