Page 36 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine September 2024

36 I Southeast Europe bne September 2024
Too many Russian missiles are taking to the air thanks to Western electronics, US officials concede. / Ildus Gilazutdinov, Russian defence ministry.
US demands quick curbs from Turkey on “military” trade with Russia
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Either curb your trade in American- origin chips and other parts vital to Russia’s war machine, or face consequences. That, reportedly, was the message lately delivered to Turkey by Washington amid tensions over how US commerce department data show the country ranks as the world’s second- biggest source, behind China, of high- priority, US-origin goods sent to Russia.
“We need Turkey to help us stop the illicit flow of US technology to Russia,” Matthew Axelrod, assistant commerce secretary leading US efforts to keep sensitive technology out of the hands of America’s adversaries, said in a state- ment to the Financial Times, reported on August 7. “We need to see progress, and quickly, by Turkish authorities and industry or we will have no choice but to impose consequences on those that evade our export controls,” he added.
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The UK financial daily said Turkey’s trade ministry declined to comment on the situation as presented by the US.
Turkey is seen as having emerged as
a key hub via which Western-made “dual-use” electronics, including processors, memory cards and amplifiers, find their way – often via third countries falsely represented as the “final destination” – into Russian missiles and drones in violation of export controls. Illicit flows of machine tools that arrive in Turkey but end up
trans-shipped to Russia are another major concern.
Turkey, a Black Sea neighbour to both Russia and Ukraine that maintains amicable relations with Moscow as well as Kyiv, has not joined the Western sanctions programme imposed on
the Kremlin but has said it respects the application of the sanctions in its foreign goods trade with Russia.
One argument put forward by Turkey, a Nato member, for its stance is that
“We need to see progress, and quickly, by Turkish authorities and industry or we will have no choice but to impose consequences on those that evade our export controls”