RT’s exclusive reports implicating Ankara in Islamic State’s illegal oil trade and the smuggling of looted antiquities has not gone unnoticed, as pressure on Turkey mounts and demand for an international investigation rises.
31 March 2016
Retired US Army Major General Paul E. Vallely believes that the documents revealed by RT, including invoices on billing information for transportation of oil into Turkey and on arm supplies, point to the fact that “Turkey has been very-very involved in supporting ISIL”.
“There’s no doubt about that,” Vallely said, however pointing out that the “focus” of Turkey’s involvement in Syria “has been on the Kurds, not ISIL.”
But despite the fact that Ankara’s ties with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) are becoming more and more evident, Vallely believes the US is not planning to take any action.
“The United States position is that they are not going to take any position on Turkey,” he noted.
European MP and deputy leader of Britain’s UKIP Party, Paul Nuttall, said that the “erratic” behavior of Ankara is a source increasing concerns.
“This ISIS trafficking of stolen relics through Turkey is not the first time they have turned a blind eye to fundraising activities by ISIS. Serious accusations have been levied at Turkey and these questions must be answered," he said.
"This is yet a further damnation for [UK Prime Minister David] Cameron's dream of Turkey joining the EU. Let's make the sensible choice and leave the EU whilst we still have the chance," Nuttall told RT.
European parliament member from Cyprus, Costas Mavrides, believes that RT’s reports and all other evidence of Ankara’s ties are still unlikely to prompt the EU change its stance on Turkey.
In the European parliament there are “more voices… that are very critical of the EU leadership” for the way it treats Turkey, which is “an accomplice with Islamic State,” he stressed.
“I want to give a totally honest answer. I don’t think that mounting reports about the role of Turkey is enough to change the well-established and deeply entrenched ideas about the interests involved with Turkey, especially, the economic ties” within the EU, Mavrides told RT.
The U-turn in EU leadership policies is only possible if support for Ankara negatively affects the election results within the block, he added.
Turkey has to provide the international community with explanations for lack of control of its borders with Syria, which is fighting against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Fabio Massimo Castaldo, Italian MEP, told RT.
Ankara should “explain clearly how it was possible to have such links between traders and Daesh [Arabic name for IS] militants to push for commerce of artifacts that belong to the Syrian traditional and cultural heritage,” he stressed.
Castaldo also called for a UN investigation of Turkish military campaign against Kurdish YPG militia, which has been one of the most effective forces fighting IS on the ground.
Ankara’s claims that YPG fighters are terrorists is a “very dangerous judgment,” the MEP said.
The American anti-terrorist effort has “little to no chance of success as long as the Turks and Peninsular Arabs continued to provide support and assistance to ISIS,” Douglas Macgregor, a retired US Army colonel, told RT in an e-mailed response.
“The Obama Administration deliberately omits this fact from the discussion presumably because the Administration and its allies in London and Paris are reluctant to publicly admit that Mr. Erdogan and his government is actively undermining the West,” he said.
Erdogan with his allies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar “have not merely recruited and supported ISIS financially, they have also encouraged the Sunni Muslim migration into Europe with the goal of ‘Islamicizing Europe,” Macgregor stressed.
French MP Nicolas Dhuicq, has called RT’s evidence of illegal artifact trade by Islamic State “very convincing.”
He recalled that when he visited Damascus last November the Syrian officials had “shown us pictures in many ancient cities in Syria, showing holes in the ground where looters [had] taken all the aircraft.”
Dhuicq said that there is enough evidence to start a criminal investigation against “the sellers and intermediaries in Turkey because it’s the same trade and the same way, the same borders, through which oil goes to Turkey.”
Human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, declined to comment on RT’s reports, citing a lack of knowledge on the issues they raised.
“Thank you for your request. We are not in a position to comment on this issue as we do not have any research on this,” the group said in an e-mailed response to RT.
Adel Alexander Darwish, a Westminster-based British political journalist, has called RT’s revelations “shocking, but not surprising.”
He recalled satellite footage, provided by the Russian military, of oil tanker trucks crossing the Turkish border and Syrian artifacts appearing on the black market and other indications of Ankara’s links with Islamic State.
The lack of criticism of Turkey’s actions from the EU is explained by the fact that “Turkey proved that they can turn and off the cap of migrants’ flood” into Europe and, with Ankara being a NATO member, the block fear sit may be dragged “into some kind of confrontation.”
26 March 2016
Russia’s permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said that the West is bound to react to RT’s evidence, as it is becoming impossible to ignore.
However, he noted that any information coming from a Russian media source would be questioned, since most Russian mainstream media is “still unfortunately being called ‘Kremlin propaganda.’”
Chizhov pointed out that the EU’s relationship with Turkey cannot be described as very friendly, as there is a side of mutual distrust to it that can be seen in work on migrants and refugees, as well as discussions surrounding the terror attacks in Brussels.
Turkey wants to see Syrian Kurds neutralized and at the same time make some money by dealing with Islamic State, Russia’s Chairman of the Upper House committee for foreign affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, told RT. He pointed out that one of the key problems for Syria is that world powers have their own, at times, conflicting agendas when it comes to the ongoing conflict there.
It is the external support for the extremist group that has kept the military conflict alive, Kosachev added.
Commenting on the leak, Kosarev also praised RT for its high-quality journalism.
“This is an example of real investigative journalism – high quality, very convincing, and which was done in very extreme situations that demanded courage,” Kosachev said.
He stressed that most of the information revealed was likely well known to intelligence agencies, yet what they did with it was very different and “now we see that.”
Italian MP Alessandro Di Battista told RT that it is “absurd” to continue to support Turkey when it has dealings with Islamic State.
Battista, a member of Italy’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement Party, stressed that “economic sanctions must be introduced” against any country that supports terrorism.
In his opinion, it is not Russia that should be sanctioned by Western states. It was “more absurd to cut out ties with Russia, knowing that Russia is and will be one of the key players in the fight against terrorism,” Battista said.
24 March 2016
German MEP for the Left Party, Andrej Hunko, has called for an international investigative body to be created to verify the evidence provided by RT.
According to Hunko, it’s “inadmissible” that Germany’s leadership is seeking closer ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“All cooperation with Turkey on police, military and intelligence level must be stopped as long as Ankara is supporting the Islamist terrorists in Syria. Same applies for the EU-Turkey agreement signed recently,” he stressed.
The UK Foreign Office said that it has “no evidence that the Government of Turkey is funding Daesh (Islamic State) or buying its oil.”
“We are aware of some cross border smuggling, which the Turkish Government is committed to reducing,” a Foreign Office spokesman stressed.
Bernard Monot, a French member of the European Parliament, has slammed Ankara for the double game it’s playing with Europe.
“On the one had they play along with us in order to get financial assistance from the European Union, but on the other – there is a feeling that they are in talks with IS… there is a feeling that this ‘caliphate’ is working closely with the Turkish president,” Monot told RT.
The joint ventures of Erdogan and Islamic State may include “illicit trade in oil and, of course, training camps, which may be on the Turkish territory,” the National Front Party member said.
As for plans to include Turkey into the European Union, Monot stressed that the Turkish state “currently has nothing to do in the EU.”
Matthew Gordon-Banks, a former Senior Research Fellow at the UK Defense Academy and former British MP, told RT in an emailed response that “there is no doubt that Turkey has helped ISIS gain huge revenues in the recent past from illegally selling oil.”
Gordon-Banks also praised Russia’s recent military operation in Syria, saying that it had largely cut IS supply lines, hitting them both economically as well as militarily.
Former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, has described as “very convincing” a report aired by RT which features piles of oil accounting papers left behind by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighters.
“There was plenty of evidence even before these latest – very damning – revelations that Turkey was up to its neck in support for collaboration with Islamic State,” he said.
According to Ford, the “obsession” of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with removing from power his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, and preventing the strengthening of the Kurds in Syria saw Turkey become eager “to stop at nothing, including collaboration with Islamic State terrorists,” Ford stressed.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that if Turkey had sincerely tried to put an end to the activities of Islamic State it could well have gone slow and we wouldn’t perhaps even be having this latest atrocity in Brussels,” the former ambassador stressed.
RT’s investigation has confirmed the existence of financial ties between Turkey and terrorists in Syria, Igor Konashenkov, Russia’s Ministry of Defense spokesman, said.
“Of course, we could not help but notice the journalistic investigation by broadcaster RT. The results of their work clearly demonstrate Ankara’s direct involvement in the financing and training of international terrorists operating in Syria,” Konashenkov stressed.
The spokesman pointed out that Russia’s Defense Ministry had previously presented its own evidence demonstrating Turkey’s involvement in illegal oil trade with jihadists.
“I am sure that as Syria’s liberation from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other terrorists continues, the amount of such irrefutable evidence of the involvement of Turkey in the plunder of Syria through international terrorists will continue to grow exponentially,” he said.
Konashenkov also drew attention to the fact that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had promised to resign if Ankara’s cooperation with the terrorists was proven.
Lord Peter Truscott, a life peer in the UK's House of Lords, stressed that Ankara has “serious questions” to answer following the revelations by RT.
“RT's report highlights some alarming evidence that Turkey is buying oil from Daesh [Arabic pejorative term for IS], and is either supporting or turning a blind eye to terrorists crossing its border into Syria. If this is the case, Turkey needs to stop aiding Daesh in its murderous activities,” Lord Truscott said.
A fresh report broadcast by RT on Thursday featured piles of accounting papers left behind by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighters in northern Syria, which document their oil trade.
RT’s Documentary crew interviewed an IS fighter detained by the Kurds who said that the group is selling oil to Turkey.
The journalists also the filmed passports of deceased or escaped jihadists, many of which contained stamps issued at Turkish border checkpoints.