The US has issued a warning to Turkey that there will be "consequences" if the country does not stop exports to Russia of US equipment with military applications that are vital to Moscow's military machine, a senior representative of the US Department of Commerce told the Financial Times, reported BTA.
US Commerce Department Assistant Secretary Matthew Axelrod recently met with Turkish officials in Ankara and Istanbul. His message has been that Turkey needs to do more to crack down on the trade in chips and other US-sourced items that are important to Russia's war in Ukraine.
“It is necessary for Turkey to help us stop the illegal flow of American technology into Russia”, Axelrod himself said in a statement to the “Financial Times” and added: “We must see progress, and fast, from the Turkish authorities and industry, or we will have no choice but to impose consequences on those who circumvent our export controls.
The US is particularly concerned that Turkey has become a key hub through which Western-made electronics, including processors, memory cards and amplifiers, find their way to Russian missiles and drones in violation of export controls. Metal cutting machines are another area of concern.
Assistant Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the US Treasury Department, Brian Nelson, during a visit to Turkey late last year, expressed displeasure with Ankara's trade in military goods. Turkey is believed to be the second-largest source of high-priority US goods for Russia after China, the representative of the US Department of Commerce said.
Axelrod has told the Turkish government that this trade is an “urgent issue” and has called on Ankara to “adopt and enforce a ban on the re-export of controlled US goods to Russia”.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has already added 18 Turkish companies to the list of organizations requiring special permits for the supply of sensitive equipment, and the U.S. Treasury Department has separately sanctioned numerous Turkish companies for alleged supplies to the Russian military-industrial complex.
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The Turkish Ministry of Commerce declined to comment on the American claims.
Turkey's exports of high-priority military goods to Russia or through alleged intermediaries such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have jumped sharply since the start of the war, writes the Financial Times. According to the publication's calculations based on Turkish customs data, for the first half of 2024 this export amounted to 85 million dollars, compared to 27 million for the same period in 2022.
However, Turkish exports of military goods appear to have declined from their peak in 2023. According to the US Treasury Department, this is due to President Joe Biden's executive order allowing any company that does business with a sanctioned Russian organization , to be treated as a direct counterparty of the Russian military-industrial complex.