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Turkish minister tells US ambassador
‘Take your dirty hands off Turkey’
as sanctions sparks fly bne IntelliNews
Tensions between Ankara and Washington have flared up with the US warning Turkey about the export to Russia of chemicals, microchips and other products that can be used in Moscow's war effort in Ukraine and Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu launching an attack on the American ambassador to his country, saying: "Take your dirty hands off of Turkey. I’m being very clear. I very well know how you would like to create strife in Turkey. Take your grinning face off from Turkey."
Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for May 14 are
fast approaching – angry rhetoric
from the Erdogan regime, designed to nationalistically rouse its core vote, is no surprise. Nor are angry interventions from US politicians who dislike the unreliability of Turkey as a Nato ally, but at the same time stop short of anything that could irretrievably wreck relations with a country crucially located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Nevertheless, sparks are flying
Brian Nelson, the US Treasury Department's top sanctions official, visited Turkish government and private sector officials on February 2 to urge more cooperation in disrupting the flow of goods that Russia can put to use in persisting with its war on the Ukrainians.
In a speech to bankers, reported by Reuters, Nelson said a pronounced year-long rise in exports to Russia left Turkish entities "particularly vulnerable to reputational and sanctions risks", or lost access to G7 markets.
They should, he said, "take extra precaution to avoid transactions related to potential dual-use technology transfers that could be used by the
Russian military-industrial complex". "There is no surprise ... that Russia is actively looking to leverage the historic economic ties it has in Turkey," a senior US official, who requested anonymity, told Reuters, adding: "The question is what is the Turkish response going to be."
In separate talks with Turkish firms, Nelson "urgently" flagged the way Russia is believed to be dodging Western controls to re-supply plastics, rubber and semi-conductors found in exported goods and used by the military, the official was also quoted as saying.
As reported at the end of last week, US officials are, meanwhile, tightening another sanctions noose that could leave Russian and Belarusian airlines flying US and European-made aircraft to Turkish airports without ground services.
Word of this move spread at the same time as interior minister Soylu started hitting out at Western countries for issuing security alerts about potential terrorist attacks in Turkey, saying these nations were waging “psychological warfare” on Turkey with the aim of
wrecking the post-covid pandemic recovery of its tourism industry.
A massive surge in Russian tourists has been a big part of the industry’s improved fortunes.
Whether Soylu – a known ardent critic
of the US, whom he blames for the 2016 attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – had Nelson’s trip to Turkey in mind as he let loose his latest invective is not known, but he was unsparing as he railed against US Ambassador to Ankara Jeffry Flake, saying during an address made at a ministerial event in Antalya: “Every US ambassador who arrives in Turkey is hurrying to find out how to make a coup possible in Turkey”.
“I address the US ambassador from here. I know the journalists you made write articles,” he added.
As Turkey continues to threaten an effective veto against Sweden’s bid to join Nato – protesting, among other things, that Stockholm is not doing enough to extradite Kurdish and Gulenist “terrorists” to Ankara or stop far-right activists from mounting protests in which the Qur’an holy book is burned – another
Expect more fireworks from Soylu and Erdogan as the elections near. / cc, public domain.
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