The evidence presented by Russia’s military high command shows beyond any doubt that Turkey is central to Islamic State’s illegal oil trade and thus the terror group’s ability to fund its violence.
Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov didn’t mince words about the revelation. He said: “According to our data, the top political leadership of the country – President Erdogan and his family – is involved in this criminal business.”
What is particularly incriminating from the Russian data is that the east Syrian oil route operated by IS is destined for the Turkish city of Batman. Batman is the heart of the Turk oil industry. It is where the country’s biggest oilfield is located and where major refineries are based.
From Batman there is a 500-kilometre pipeline running westwards to the Mediterranean port cities of Dortyol and Ceyhan, both located in the Gulf of Iskenderun. The pipeline, which has a capacity to supply up to 30 million barrels of crude oil a year, is owned and operated by Turkey’s state-owned BOTAS Petroleum Corporation.
The port of Ceyhan is where the licensed shipping company BMZ owned by President Erdogan’s son Bilal and other family members is based. BMZ is a big Turkish player in the global oil trade.
Significantly, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reported in September this year that Erdogan’s BMZ spent $36 million in acquiring two new oil tankers to bring its total fleet to five. The ships are believed to ferry much of their crude oil cargos to Japan and other Asian countries. Business is booming and it’s no wonder.
Putin had earlier responded to Erdogan’s denials of collusion in terrorist oil smuggling by saying that “it is hard to imagine how the Turkish authorities could not be aware of the industrial-scale transport of oil across its border.”
But now Russian aerial images have presented a complete picture of how this massive oil supply is being routed through Turkey with state-owned companies.
The personal complicity of Erdogan through his family shipping business makes his resignation unquestionable. Furthermore, the Turkish president should face prosecution for gross violations of international law amounting to war crimes.
Surely, the Americans must know about the industrial-scale oil smuggling routes? For more than a year, since the US began bombing raids on Syria, allegedly against the Islamic State terror network, the oil smuggling has been untouched.
This week, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Congressional committee that it was only in the last two months that the Pentagon got serious with airstrikes on IS oil routes. He admitted that for more than a year, the Pentagon hadn’t bothered because it wasn’t communicating sufficiently with the State Department. Dunford and the US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who was also giving evidence to the same committee, both claimed that the decision not to strike oil trucks run by terrorists was to taken in order to “avoid civilian casualties.”