BERLIN, Oct 12 (AFP) - Germany wants to sell hundreds of heavy battle tanks to Turkey, in a major change of recent defence policy, the press here reported on Tuesday.
The sale of the Leopard II tanks is expected to be pushed ahead if European Union leaders decide in December that Turkey has undertaken enough democratic reforms to begin EU membership talks.
A defence ministry spokesman told AFP that no official request had been made by Ankara, but he said Defence Minister Peter Struck planned to travel to Turkey next month to discuss its military needs with his counterpart Vecdi Gonul.
The Die Welt newspaper also reported that Germany's security council -- a forum of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his defence, foreign and interior ministers -- will soon discuss preparations for the sale.
The government, in principle, refuses export licences for weapons and military equipment where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used for internal repression or the abuse of human rights.
Germany was prepared in 1999 to sell around 1,000 tanks to Turkey but opposition from the Greens party, the junior partners in the ruling coalition, brought the deal to an end.
The party feared the tanks might have been used against the Kurdish minority in southeast Turkey.
There were also doubts about whether Ankara could afford the equipment.
Speaking to reporters in Berlin, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the arms sale is "not a question that has arisen yet."
"To my knowledge there has been no official request," said Fischer, himself a member of the environment-oriented Greens.
According to Monday's Handelsblatt newspaper, the minister no longer supports the weapons export restrictions because they would contradict any EU recommendation that Turkey begin its long-awaited accession talks.
Leaders of the 25 EU countries will convene on December 17 to finally decide whether Turkey should start negotiations. Many are under public pressure to bar the entry of a relatively poor, predominantly Muslim country of 70 million.
One of the joint presidents of the Greens, Reinhard Buetikofer, also suggested that the party would drop opposition to the sale which was raised in 1999.
"At that time there was a civil war, at that time you had to be concerned that these weapons would be used in that civil war," Buetikofer told N24 television.
"If there is a request, it must be examined," he said, adding that Turkey had undergone wide-ranging reforms in the last five years.
The Leopard II tank is made by the Munich-based firm Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. Variations of it have been sold to Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Finland and Greece have also placed orders.
Turkey would be sold second-hand tanks rather than new ones, the press said, at an estimated value of up to seven billion euros (8.6 billion dollars).