One casualty of the Bush administration's ambiguous attempts to mollify Turkey over the issue of clamping down on Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq may well be Washington's larger agenda of isolating Iran.

Ankara and Tehran have signed $1.5 billion in agreements providing for the joint construction of three 2,000-megawatt thermal power plants -- two in Iran and one in Turkey, and several hydroelectric plants in Iran with a total 10,000-megawatt capability. The agreements also provide for upgrading electrical power transmission lines between the two countries. Under terms of the agreement, Ankara will import 3 billion to 6 billion kilowatt hours of electrical energy annually. At present, Iran exports electricity to Turkey through two transmission lines totaling 250 megawatts.

The agreement comes in direct contradiction to Washington's policy of further isolating Iran over its controversial uranium enrichment program as the U.S. government mulls preparing to introduce at the U.N. Security Council a third round of sanctions penalizing Tehran. Certainly, the Turkish government was not unaware of the Bush administration's wishes; recently U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman held talks with Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler and expressed Washington's concerns over any possible energy accords with Iran, maintaining that such agreements could only encourage Tehran to pursue its nuclear agenda.

In September, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs Reuben Jeffery III visited Turkey and told journalists that Washington expects "Turkey and other governments to help effectively implement the spirit of not one but two unanimous U.N. Security Council sanctions" against Iran because of its nuclear activities, adding helpfully that Turkey should look for alternative sources of gas supplies, like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iraq.

Lest Jeffery's intent be lost, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicolas Burns visited Ankara in October and brought up the 1999 U.S.-Iran Sanctions Act, under which foreign companies investing more than $20 million in the Iranian hydrocarbon sector risk sanctions, but added diplomatically, "All countries should do their best to sanction Iran on their own, according to their own laws."