by Kendal Nezan, President of the Institut kurde in Paris, LMD July 1998. "After the Gulf War in 1991, Turkey found itself deprived of the all-important Iraqi market and, since it lacked significant oil reserves of its own, it decided to make up for the loss by turning more massively to drugs. " "...most European governments prefer to maintain an embarrassed silence on Ankara's dealings, in the same way that they have refrained from open criticism of the destruction of 3,428 Kurdish villages and the displacement of more than three million Kurds by their Turkish allies." "...Tom Sackville, minister of state at the British Home Office, who stated in the Sunday Times on 26 January 1997 that 80% of the heroin seized in Britain came from Turkey" "...Turkey is one of the countries most affected by money-laundering, which takes place particularly via the countries of the ex-Soviet Union, through the medium of casinos, the construction industry and tourism."