Logo

Logo

Crippled conflict

The US has already sentenced the bank’s general manager, and a gold trader, Reza Zarrab, who pleaded guilty and offered cooperation.

Crippled conflict

(File Photo: Mustafa Kaya/Xinhua/IANS)

The United States of America has extended its loop of economic reprisals with Tuesday’s decision of Congress to impose a broad cache of sanctions against Turkey in the wake of the offensive against Kurds in north-eastern Syria. For very different reasons, Ankara is the second target of Donald Trump’s economic arm-twisting. The crippling curbs will go beyond the purely economic, however.

The sanctions will entail a sharp reduction in military support as well. No less significant is the confirmation by Senate officials that the measures announced by the Trump administration over the past week were dismissed as ineffective. The bipartisan bill is aimed at forcing the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to halt his military campaign in north-eastern Syria, amid reports of widespread human rights abuses and the release of Isis militants who had been detained there.

It would be pertinent to recall that initial reports had spoken of 750 Caliphate activists having fled. The Senate bill seeks to impose restrictive measures on Turkey’s political leadership and the country’s domestic energy sector. It would also prohibit US military support to Turkey, a Nato ally. Mr. Trump, widely blamed even by normally loyal supporters for giving his approval to the Turkish invasion, had on Monday sought to stall Congressional sanctions and regain the initiative with an executive order.

Advertisement

The geopolitical conflict has clearly gone beyond the Kurdish issue. On Tuesday, the US justice department announced new criminal charges against a major Turkish bank for what was described as a multi-billion dollar sanctions busting scheme. Halkbank was charged with fraud, money laundering, and sanctions offences, for the scheme which involved selling Iranian oil for gold. “Halkbank’s systemic participation in the illicit movement of billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil revenue was designed and executed by senior bank officials,” a justice department statement said.

“The bank’s audacious conduct was supported and protected by high-ranking Turkish government officials, some of whom received millions of dollars in bribes to promote and protect the scheme.” There is, therefore, a core banking facet to the crisis as well. It was not clear whether the unveiling of the charges was in any way coordinated with the sanctions and slide in US-Turkish relations.

The US has already sentenced the bank’s general manager, and a gold trader, Reza Zarrab, who pleaded guilty and offered cooperation. As the plot thickens beyond the potential danger of Isis and the mounting disaffection of the Kurds, Trump’s executive order has imposed a 50 per cent tariff on imports of Turkish steel. It has also terminated a $100 billion bilateral trade deal and gives the State Department and Treasury wide powers to impose targeted sanctions on Turkish officials. There is as yet no indication of an imminent cease-fire. Turkey has been known to be a US ally. But just as there are no permanent enemies in politics, friendships do not always endure in international relations.

Advertisement