US sanctions Turkish firms for alleged aid to Russia

US sanctions Turkish firms for alleged aid to Russia
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Updated 15 September 2023
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US sanctions Turkish firms for alleged aid to Russia

US sanctions Turkish firms for alleged aid to Russia
  • Ankara ‘taking a number of steps to seek convergence with West, while neither alienating nor strengthening Moscow,’ analyst tells Arab News
  • The designations specifically target shipping and trade entities alleged to have played a role in the repair of sanctioned vessels associated with Russia’s Defense Ministry

ANKARA: President Joe Biden announced on Thursday the imposition of sanctions on five Turkish companies and a Turkish national.
The move comes amid accusations they helped Russia in evading Western sanctions and provided support to Moscow in its ongoing war in Ukraine.
It is part of a broader set of sanctions targeting over 150 Russian-supporting entities and individuals, hindering the Russian military as well as the country’s industrial base, construction sector, financial sector, oil and gas industry, technology supply and maritime sector.
The designations specifically target shipping and trade entities alleged to have played a role in the repair of sanctioned vessels associated with Russia’s Defense Ministry and in facilitating the transfer of dual-use goods.
Among the sanctioned firms, construction and foreign trade company Margiana Insaat Dis Ticaret faces allegations of facilitating covert deliveries to sanctioned Russian entities entrenched in the military drone production supply chain. Informatics and trade company Demirci Bilisim Ticaret Sanayi finds itself under scrutiny for purportedly dispatching sensors and measuring tools to Russia.

The direction of the US-Turkiye relationship this year will be determined by the developments regarding F-16 sales by the US to Ankara and Turkish ratification of Sweden’s NATO bid.

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Analyst

Also on the list is Denkar Ship Construction, a company embroiled in allegations of providing repair services to vessels linked to the Russian Defense Ministry. Similarly, shipyard agency ID Ship Agency and its owner, Ilker Dogruyol, have been sanctioned for their suspected involvement in similar activities.
CTL Ltd. finds itself accused of shipping US and European-origin electronic components to companies in Russia.
The Turkish government did not release any official statement about the designations.
This decision, however, came amid a sensitive juncture in US-Turkiye relations, with Washington closely watching Ankara’s potential ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership application when the Turkish parliament reconvenes in early October.
At the July NATO summit in Lithuania, Ankara agreed to forward Sweden’s bid to join NATO for a ratification vote, while Turkiye made it clear that it was waiting for Stockholm to fulfil its commitments about counterterrorism efforts.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the sanctions imposed on Thursday would not derail Sweden’s accession bid to join NATO.
“We continue to work with them to communicate that NATO accession is important for Sweden, it should happen as soon as possible, and we take President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s assurances that it will happen at great value,” he said.
The US and its allies imposed extensive sanctions on Russia after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but supply channels from Black Sea neighbor Turkiye and other trading hubs have remained open, prompting Washington to frequently issue warnings about the export of chemicals, microchips and other products that can be used in Moscow’s war effort.
Rich Outzen, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and Jamestown Foundation, said: “These individual/entity sanctions differ greatly from state sanctions on state targets; they are less about geopolitics or bilateral relations and more about ‘grey’ business actions.
“Clearly no government likes to have businesses run by its nationals listed, but it is an order of magnitude below sanctioning state entities or coercive diplomacy per se,” he told Arab News.
Outzen expects muted reaction from Ankara given the shared interest in not helping Russia, with Turkiye strongly supporting Ukraine’s defense.
This is not closely connected to the dealing over Swedish NATO accession or the transfer of US F-16 jets to Turkiye, he said.
Ankara “is taking a number of steps to seek convergence with the West, while neither alienating nor strengthening Russia. That particular balancing act does not generally change in response to micro-events like a commercial sanction,” Outzen said.
“Failure of the F-16 fighter jets deal and/or Sweden’s accession process are more dangerous in that regard,” he added.
A concerted effort to discourage the Turkish private sector from assisting Russia in circumventing US sanctions has been also underway since more than a year.
This has included the visits of several high-level US officials, including Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, to Turkiye in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, forming part of a pressure campaign to deter such activities.
For Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Ankara office director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the sanctions in question concern only a limited number of Turkish companies and nationals helping Russia circumvent sanctions on the import of dual-use products particularly from Europe, and as such they have neither political implications nor economic consequences for Turkiye.
“There is a tacit understanding between the US and Turkiye that such trade should be prevented,” he told Arab News.
According to Unluhisarcikli, the direction of the US-Turkiye relationship this year will be determined by the developments regarding F-16 sales by the US to Ankara and Turkish ratification of Sweden’s NATO bid.
Erdogan and Biden had a short meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in India where they reportedly talked about F-16s.
Ankara requested the fighter jets and their modernization kits back in October 2021, but the $6 billion deal is still pending the approval of Congress.


’Left to die’: report exposes horrors at Syria army hospital

Updated 1 min 4 sec ago
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’Left to die’: report exposes horrors at Syria army hospital

’Left to die’: report exposes horrors at Syria army hospital
BEIRUT: Syrian authorities abused and left detainees to die at a Damascus military hospital, using the facility to cover up the torture of prisoners, a rights group and former detainees said.
Sick prisoners sent from detention facilities to the capital’s Tishreen Military Hospital for treatment rarely received any medical attention, according to a report released Tuesday by the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP), a Turkiye-based watchdog.
Instead, security forces at the hospital jail and even medical and administrative staff inflicted “brutal torture” on detainees, including physical and psychological violence, according to the report titled “Buried in Silence.”
It covers abuses from the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011 to 2020, but the authors said they believe many of the practices persist today.
Abu Hamza, 43, said he was taken to the jail at the Tishreen hospital three times during his incarceration, but only saw a doctor once.
“Prisoners were afraid to go to the hospital, because many did not return,” said Abu Hamza, who was jailed for seven years, including at the notorious Sednaya prison on the Damascus outskirts.
“Those who were very sick would be left to die in the hospital lockup,” said Abu Hamza, who like others AFP spoke to used first names or pseudonyms for fear of reprisals.
“If we could walk, we’d be sent back to prison,” he added.
ADMSP was founded by former detainees held in Sednaya, Syria’s largest jail which has become a by-word for torture and the darkest abuses of the regime.
In a report last year the group described Sednaya’s “salt rooms,” primitive mortuaries designed to preserve bodies.
The latest ADMSP report is based on interviews with 32 people including former detainees, security personnel and medical staff, as well as leaked documents.
Rights groups have long accused President Bashar Assad’s government of torturing detainees and executing prisoners without fair trials.
In 2011, Syrian government forces cracked down on peaceful protesters, triggering a complex war that has left more than 500,000 dead and forced millions to flee.
Up to one-fifth of that toll died in government-run prisons, according to Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Some of the horrific images of dead Syrians smuggled out by “Caesar,” a defector who had worked as a photographer for the military police, were shot inside Tishreen hospital, according to human rights groups.
Abu Hamza said guards at the hospital prison “once barged in and ordered us to lie on the ground,” beating them for 15 minutes before leaving.
According to the ADMSP report, inmates who died in custody from torture or poor conditions, particularly at Sednaya, were taken to the Tishreen hospital and then to “mass graves” near the capital.
Inmates arriving at the hospital were first held “in the same room where bodies of detainees were collected,” and sick detainees were forced to help transport prisoners’ corpses, the report said.
Abu Hamza said he was made to toil for hours, barefoot and in the bitter cold, loading bodies into a vehicle at Sednaya prison and then offloading them at Tishreen hospital near its jail.
There, security forces wrote a number on the corpse or on a piece of paper. A photographer would then take pictures of the dead.
The ADMSP report said no autopsies were conducted and the hospital issued “death certificates with false information,” often citing heart attack, kidney failure or stroke as the cause of death.
Sometimes inmates “between life and death” were placed among the corpses and left to die or even killed, according to the report.
Abu Hamza recalled a detainee who was “fighting for his life” in the hospital jail.
“They did not bring a doctor. Instead, they put him aside, among the corpses. They left him to die,” he said.
The report said a jail officer would sometimes kill very sick detainees, or prisoners would be ordered to take part in doing so.
Tishreen hospital plays a “central role in enforced disappearances, covering up torture, falsifying the causes of death” and other abuses amounting to “crimes against humanity” said ADMSP co-founder Diab Serriya.
“What happens inside Tishreen hospital and other military hospitals is a systematic policy” adopted by the authorities, he added.
A Syrian doctor is currently on trial in Germany accused of torture, murder and crimes against humanity while working in military hospitals in his homeland.
Lawsuits have been filed elsewhere in Europe, as well as the United States and at the International Court of Justice, against the Syrian government and officials on accusations of torture.
Mahmud was only 16 when he was jailed in 2014 and sent to Tishreen hospital, where he said other detainees beat him severely.
“They held me to the ground, stepped on me and covered my mouth... (until) I passed out,” he said.
“I woke up a short time later and found myself among corpses in the corner of the cell,” Mahmud said, adding he was taken back to Sednaya prison without receiving any medical attention.
During the rest of his time in detention, he was too scared to visit a doctor, despite contracting tuberculosis.
“I could no longer chew food at one point, but I didn’t tell anyone so they wouldn’t take me back to Tishreen hospital,” Mahmud said.

President Biden thanks Qatar’s emir for mediation in freeing Americans from Iran

President Biden thanks Qatar’s emir for mediation in freeing Americans from Iran
Updated 5 sec ago
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President Biden thanks Qatar’s emir for mediation in freeing Americans from Iran

President Biden thanks Qatar’s emir for mediation in freeing Americans from Iran
  • Biden praised “Qatar’s active and constructive role on the international stage.”

WASHINGTON D.C.: US President Joe Biden called Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani to thank him for Doha’s mediation that resulted in the release of a number of Americans from Iran, the Amiri Diwan said on Tuesday.

“During the call, the strategic relations between the two countries and aspects of supporting and strengthening them in various fields were reviewed,” the Amiri Diwan, or Emir’s office, said in a statement.

It also said that Biden had praised “Qatar’s active and constructive role on the international stage.”

Last month, with Doha’s mediation, Iran freed five Americans as part of a prisoner swap for five Iranians held in the United States and the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian funds.


EU agrees sanctions framework for key actors in Sudan war — sources

EU agrees sanctions framework for key actors in Sudan war — sources
Updated 03 October 2023
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EU agrees sanctions framework for key actors in Sudan war — sources

EU agrees sanctions framework for key actors in Sudan war — sources
  • EU foreign ministers still need to give a final sign off later this month
  • The United States, Britain, Norway and Germany plan to submit a motion to the UN Human Rights Council

BRUSSELS: European Union ambassadors agreed a framework of sanctions that will be used to target key actors in Sudan’s war and impose asset freezes and travel bans, sources familiar with the matter said.
War broke out in Sudan in April this year between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, who ousted longtime autocrat Omar Al-Bashir in 2019, and a paramilitary force led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The fighting and bloodshed has continued to escalate despite international attempts to forge a lasting ceasfire. The war has uprooted more than 5 million people from their homes and created a humanitarian crisis with local medics warning of spreading cholera and dengue fever.
The sanctions proposal was sent in July but not approved until Monday. EU foreign ministers still need to give a final sign off later this month before the bloc can start adding individuals and entities to the list.
The United States, Britain, Norway and Germany plan to submit a motion to the UN Human Rights Council to set up an investigation into alleged atrocities in Sudan, including ethnically motivated killings, a draft motion showed on Friday.


Turkiye detains dozens of people in raids following suicide bomb attack

Turkiye detains dozens of people in raids following suicide bomb attack
Updated 03 October 2023
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Turkiye detains dozens of people in raids following suicide bomb attack

Turkiye detains dozens of people in raids following suicide bomb attack
  • On Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near an entrance to the Interior Ministry
  • Two police officers were slightly injured in the attack

ANKARA: Police detained at least 67 people across Turkiye on Tuesday in a sweep targeting people with alleged links to Kurdish militants, days after a suicide bomb attack in the Turkish capital.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said police carried out raids in 16 Turkish provinces, detaining 55 people suspected of being part of the “intelligence structure” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. At least 12 other suspected PKK members were rounded up in a separate operation in five provinces, Yerlikaya wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
The PKK has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye and is considered a terror organization by the United States and the European Union. Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.
On Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near an entrance to the Interior Ministry hours before President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was set to address Parliament as it returned from its summer recess. A second would-be bomber was killed in a shootout with police.
Two police officers were slightly wounded in the attack. The suspects arrived at the scene inside a vehicle they seized from a veterinarian in the central Turkish of Kayseri after shooting him in the head, officials said.
The PKK claimed responsibility for the attack, according to a news website close to the group, while Turkish authorities identified one of the assailants as a PKK militant. Hours later, Turkiye’s Air Force carried out airstrikes on suspected PKK sites in northern Iraq, where the group’s leadership is based. The Defense Ministry said a large number of PKK militants were “neutralized” in the strikes.
Yerlikaya did not clarify whether the people rounded up on Tuesday were suspected of direct involvement in Sunday’s attack.


‘Probable’ Israel strike kills six Syria fighters: monitor

‘Probable’ Israel strike kills six Syria fighters: monitor
Updated 03 October 2023
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‘Probable’ Israel strike kills six Syria fighters: monitor

‘Probable’ Israel strike kills six Syria fighters: monitor
  • Syrian defense ministry said an Israeli strike on army positions elsewhere in the province had wounded two soldiers late on Monday
  • “Six pro-Iranian fighters were killed in a probable Israeli strike” on Monday evening, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said

BEIRUT: A “probable Israeli air strike” on Syria killed six pro-Iranian fighters in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor near the border with Iraq, a war monitor said Tuesday.
Separately, the Syrian defense ministry said an Israeli strike on army positions elsewhere in the province had wounded two soldiers late on Monday.
“Six pro-Iranian fighters were killed in a probable Israeli strike” on Monday evening, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Israeli strikes targeted “three sites belonging to Iran-backed groups” close to the border city of Albu Kamal, the Britain-based monitor said.
Militias linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have a heavy presence across Syria, especially around the border with Iraq.
During more than a decade of conflict in Syria, neighboring Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, targeting Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.
Separately, the Syrian defense ministry said that shortly before midnight (2100 GMT) on Monday, an Israeli air strike had wounded two soldiers near the city of Deir Ezzor.
“The Israeli enemy carried out air strikes on some of our armed forces’ positions near the city of Deir Ezzor,” leaving “two soldiers wounded,” a ministry statement said.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes it carries out on targets in Syria, but it has said repeatedly that it will not allow its arch foe Iran to expand its presence.
Last month, Israeli air strikes killed two soldiers on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, state media said.
In March, US strikes on Iran-linked groups in eastern Syria killed 19 people, including both Iran-backed fighters and Syrian soldiers, the Observatory said.
The war in Syria has killed more than half a million people since it broke out in 2011, following the bloody repression of pro-democracy protests.
It quickly escalated into a broader conflict that pulled in jihadists and foreign powers.