In its annual report on the global fight against drugs trafficking, money laundering and financial crimes, the U.S. State Department urged the Turkish government and Parliament to expand the country's legal definition of terrorism to cover matters not directly related to Turkey.

"Neither the current draft of the legislation, nor a June 2006 set of amendments to Turkey's antiterrorism laws, expanded upon Turkey's narrow definition of terrorism applicable only in terms of attacks on Turkish nationals or the Turkish state," the department said on Thursday in its latest international narcotics control strategy report.

  "Turkey should consider expanding its narrow legal definition of terrorism," it said.

  The State Department said that with the passage of several new pieces of legislation, Turkey took steps in 2005 and 2006 to strengthen its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime.

  "It now faces the challenge of aggressively implementing these laws," it said. "Turkey should improve its coordination among the various entities charged with responsibility in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime, including the various courts with responsibilities for these issues, in order to increase the number of successful investigations and prosecutions."

  It also said that Turkey should continue tax reform that would help minimize the underground economy, and that Ankara should also strengthen its oversight of charities.

  The department qualified Turkey "as an important regional financial center, particularly for Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as for the Middle East and Eastern Europe."

  On the narcotics side, it said Turkey remained a major transit route for Southwest Asian opiates to Europe and served as a staging area for major narcotics traffickers and brokers, despite Turkish efforts to stem drugs trafficking.

  It said Turkey's security forces last year seized more than 10,000 kilograms of heroin, 500 kilograms of morphine base, nearly 20 million Captagon tablets and 2.5 million Ecstasy tablets.  

  While most of the heroin trafficked via Turkey is marketed in Western Europe, some heroin and opium also is smuggled from Turkey to the United States, but not in quantities sufficient to have a significant impact on the United States, it said.

  "There is no appreciable cultivation of illicit narcotics in Turkey other than marijuana grown primarily for domestic consumption," the State Department said. "There is no known diversion from Turkey's licit opium poppy cultivation and pharmaceutical morphine production program."

  The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) "reports excellent cooperation with Turkish officials," it said. "Turkish counter-narcotics forces are both professional and technically sophisticated."

  The State Department also said that that top anti-terror allies Afghanistan, Pakistan and Colombia had fallen short in the war on drugs despite enhanced counter-narcotics efforts and it criticized perennial foes Iran, North Korea and Venezuela for not co-operating.

ÜMİT ENGİNSOY
WASHINGTON - Turkish Daily News