ANKARA, Turkey — Approaching the 10-year mark, Operation Northern Watch’s watch may be winding down — and there are signs that the United Nations-mandated, no-fly mission is wearing out its welcome in Turkey.

In the offices of the Office of Defense Cooperation in Ankara, the liaison agency between the U.S. and the Turkish militaries, officers quietly predict that the end is near.

"[U.S. officials] don’t expect it to be renewed next time," said one officer. "The Turks are just suffering too much economically. Plus, a Russian jet flew over ONW’s AOR [area of responsibility] a few weeks ago, and that could have been a real problem."

That would be one of many facing the operation.

Turkey’s National Security Council, which includes the president, prime minister and heads of the military, won’t discuss the mission.

"No comment," said the council’s spokesman.

U.S. officials also have little to say about the mission on the eve of the inauguration of a new administration, and officials at Incirlik declined to answer questions about the Russian overflight.

The ONW spokesman responded by e-mail to questions about the status of the mission, stating, "The Iraqis continue to fire at coalition aircraft. While we have not had to respond to any of these attempts since mid-November, they are still occurring. We respond in self defense as necessary."

That the operation may be on the way out is not the official U.S. position.

"I don’t know if your source is reading the newspaper, tea leaves or what," said Army Col. David Knack, ODC deputy commander of the Office of Defense Cooperation in Ankara.

"There is no change at any official level I’m aware of," he said, adding that the parliament "overwhelmingly" voted to renew ONW on Dec. 31.

The Turkish Grand National Assembly votes every six months to renew the no-fly mission over northern Iraq, based at Incirlik Air Base in south-central Turkey.

"Can [ONW] change? Yes," Knack said. "Can it metamorphasize? Yes. But no one knows anything for certain."

What is certain is that officials in Turkey — as in other countries — are more and more willing to live with Saddam Hussein.

Turkey reestablished full diplomatic relations with Iraq earlier this month, 10 years after it downgraded to a consulate during the Gulf War. Mehmet Akad was named the new ambassador to Baghdad. Daily press synopsis by the Turkish government are full of stories about Turkish companies drilling new oil wells in Iraq and landing big trade deals.

If relations with Iraq returned to where they were before the war, Turkey could realize a significant economic boost from trade with its neighbor, said Omer Faruk Gunel, Star newspaper economist and columnist.

In the construction sector alone, Turkey-based companies are looking at huge projects such as building roads, dams and refineries cumulatively worth between $30 billion and $50 billion, Gunel said.

So far, American fighter-bombers flying sorties over Iraq from Turkish soil have not been an impediment to Turkey and Iraq normalizing relations.

"They [the Iraqis] never even mentioned [ONW] in the negotiations" that led to the reestablishment of full diplomatic ties, said Shevket Bulent Yahnici, a deputy with the National Action Party known as the MHP. The party, which has the second-largest number of seats in the current coalition government, led the vote to renew ONW. But Yahnici and others say they expect the Iraqis will bring up ONW sooner or later.

In fact, one MHP deputy cited the operation last week in response to Turkey granting aid to Iraqi Kurdish groups fighting the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group the Turks have fought for 15 years.

"On one hand, we’re sending our ambassador to Iraq, but on the other hand, we’re flying missions over the 36th parallel. What is our foreign affairs [minister Ismail Cem] trying to say?" said Murat Sokmenoglu, Istanbul deputy and deputy chairman of the party.

Sokmenoglu said he wants Cem to explain "what understanding is foreign affairs trying to establish here? What’s the status of northern Iraq?"

Yahnici and other Turkish politicians say that they’re feeling the heat from the business sector to increase trade with Iraq, which has the second largest oil reserves behind Saudi Arabia and remains — after 10 years of sanctions — the second largest exporter.

The business sector is putting pressure on the government "right now," said Ankara-based construction company executives Murat Batur and Ahmet Niyazi Ozbek

What business owners want is for the U.S. and U.N. to relax sanctions, allowing sales of everything but weapons or technology that might be used for military purposes.

Earlier this month, Gen. Colin Powell, secretary of state-designate under the incoming Bush administration, said he wants to reinvigorate sanctions, which he said will remain as long as Saddam is in control. In dozens of interviews during the last month, Turkish business leaders have said they oppose continuing sanctions — that Turkey has suffered too long for its loyalty.

"It’s getting to the point that we’re becoming a pawn," said Ozbek, who is on the board of directors of Ankara-based Ozbek Inshaat Sanayi, his family’s Ankara-based commercial and industrial construction company. Turkey has made all the sacrifices, following U.S. sanctions "to the letter," said Ozbek, a businessman of Kurdish decent with interests in southeast Turkey near the Iraq border.

Batur, an Ozbek executive and a former member of the Turkish parliament, singled out Jordan as the country that’s benefited from American aid and smuggling: "Jordan … went without a nosebleed and has reaped the benefits more than Turkey."

Ultimately, a surprise move by an American congressman may help shoot down ONW. In October, James Rogan, a Republican representative, introduced House Resolution 398, which calls for recognizing the "genocide" of 1.5 million Armenians by Turks in 1915. The Turkish government counters that there were massacres on both sides, adding that the current republic didn’t even exist at the time, the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Supporters pulled the bill in November after President Clinton said that it threatened national security by provoking Turkey. If the resolution should come up again, "the world would spin backward," said MHP minister Yahnici. Asked if he believes that Turkey would retaliate by voting to end the U.N.-sanctioned mission, Yahnici answered, "Correct."

The minister added that Turkey is a member of NATO, and has obligations to execute U.N. policies toward rogue nations such as Iraq. "But since the Gulf War, whatever support we did give America, we haven’t seen anything in return."