News Scan – 2nd January, 2014: Turkey seizes arms in truck bound for Syria

Turkey seizes arms in truck bound for Syria

Turkish security forces have seized a truck laden with weapons bound for Syria and arrested three people including a Syrian, local media reported on Thursday.

Acting on a tipoff, security forces on Wednesday stopped the truck in the southern province of Hatay on the Syrian border, Hurriyet newspaper reported. A significant quantity of ammunition and weapons were discovered in the truck, whose drivers claimed they were carrying aid on behalf of the pro-Islamic Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH). But IHH dismissed the allegations as “slanderous”. “Our organization has nothing to do with this case,” a spokesman for the relief group told AFP.

Turkey is a vocal critic of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has openly supported the rebels fighting his regime, but has always denied arming them. In December, local media reported that Turkey had shipped 47 tons of weapons to the rebels since June.

But Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz denied weapons of war had been sent to Syria, saying only hunting rifles had been exported.

Turkey, which has been accused of turning a blind eye to fighters crossing its border into Syria, is sheltering about 600,000 Syrian refugees who have fled the civil war as well as the main Syrian opposition group.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/01/02/Turkey-seizes-arms-in-truck-bound-for-Syria-.html
Turkish annual exports remain at $151.7 bln in 2013

Turkey’s annual exports in 2013 stood at $151.7 billion, almost the same figure for the year before, Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekçi said on Thursday. Announcing the data which was compiled by using export figures for the first 11 months from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) and December’s export figures calculated by the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM), Zeybekçi said the calculated export value was similar to 2012’s figures. Once TurkStat’s data for December is released in January, the figure is expected to be $152.5 billion.

The data showed that Turkey’s biggest exporter in 2013 was the automotive sector, which sold $21.3 billion worth of vehicles and automotive components to overseas buyers, a nearly $2 billion increase from a year before. It was followed by the chemical and chemical components sector with exports worth $17.4 billion and the ready-to-wear and apparel sector with $17.3 billion. The minister also announced that the sectors that saw the greatest increase in exports were the olives and olive oil sector with a 118.6 percent increase, the ship and yacht sector at 43.5 percent and the mining sector at 20.6 percent.

TODAYS ZAMAN

Iran foreign minister to visit Turkey amid corruption probe

Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s trip comes as Turkey seeks to improve economic and political ties with its neighbour but with the government in Ankara embroiled in a deep political crisis over the corruption scandal. Dozens of people were arrested last month, including allies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused of bribery over construction projects and allegations of gold smuggling to Iran aimed at dodging international sanctions.

Iranian officials on Monday arrested Babak Zanjani, a tycoon is believed to have played a major role in busting sanctions imposed on Tehran over its disputed nuclear programme. Zanjani was involved in illegal gold sales from Turkey to Iran that sparked the graft investigation, according to media reports.

Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank has come under the spotlight in the sweeping investigation, accused of being involved in the illegal gold sales to Iran in return for energy imports.

Halkbank chief executive Suleyman Aslan was arrested and charged with taking bribes after police reportedly found $4.5 million stashed in shoeboxes in his home. But the bank denied any wrongdoing and said it stopped transactions to Iran as of June last year after the United States announced further sanctions against the Islamic republic. The government has defended the bank, with Erdogan claiming that it was being targeted by unnamed international plotters.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Jan-02/242910-iran-foreign-minister-to-visit-turkey-amid-corruption-probe.ashx#ixzz2pG02H1PN

Erdogan blames ‘foreign-backed’ elements for dirty plot against Turkey

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan urged Turks to rally around him in fighting what he termed a dirty plot by foreign-backed elements targeting “the bread on your table, the money in your pocket, the sweat of your brow”.

“History will not forgive those who have become mixed up in this game,” Erdogan said in a televised end of year address devoted almost entirely to a corruption investigation he says has been engineered in police and judiciary to undermine his government and sap its influence in the Middle East and beyond.

Police raided offices and homes and detained businessmen close to the government and the sons of three ministers on Dec. 17. Erdogan responded by purging some 70 officers connected with the inquiry and blocking a second investigation into big infrastructure projects promoted by Erdogan. “I invite every one of our 76 million people to stand up for themselves, to defend democracy and to be as one against these ugly attacks on our country,” he said.

The scandal poses the biggest challenge to Erdogan in 11 years as leader, raising fears of a fracture in his AK Party in the run-up to elections and damage to strong economic growth.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/10545990/Erdogan-blames-foreign-backed-elements-for-dirty-plot-against-Turkey.html

Oil flow from Turkey-N. Iraq oil pipeline to begin soon

Energy minister hopes the oil pipeline and the oil transfer to enable a normalization, development in Iraq and increase in Iraq`s national revenue. Tests for the northern Iraqi oil has been completed up to Ceyhan (Turkey`s southern coastal district of the Mediterranean Adana province) and the oil flow will begin soon, said Turkish Energy and Natural Sources Minister Taner Yildiz on Monday.

Remarking on the latest developments in the new oil pipeline between northern Iraq and Turkey that has been under construction, Yildiz answered questions over the current situation in testing efforts for the oil flow, when the oil flow to begin. “Both the corrosion and test efforts for the northern Iraqi oil was completed at first step up to Silopi. Now it has been completed to Ceyhan and the oil flow will begin soon,” he noted.

The minister stated that he welcomed the remarks of Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani appreciating recent agreements between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdish administration on oil and natural gas exports to Turkey, provided that the central government in Baghdad is not marginalized in any such agreements. Yildiz also expressed hope for the oil pipeline and the oil transfer to serve for the benefit of Iraq so as to enable a normalization, development in the country and increase in Iraq`s national revenue.

In his early December visit to Iraq, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani reached a host of agreements and decided on setting up the commission in the aftermath of a major energy deal between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdish administration.

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=385453

 02.01.2014

This is a news-scan from major Turkish papers and internet sites. However, we do not verify above stories neither do we vouch for their accuracy.