T\u00fcrkiye must quickly curb the flow of American military-linked hardware to Moscow, Washington has reportedly demanded<\/p>\n\n\n\n
T\u00fcrkiye will face \u201cconsequences\u201d if it continues to allow the sale to Russia of American civilian products with military applications during its conflict with Ukraine, a high-ranking US Commerce Department official has told the Financial Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington is increasingly concerned that its fellow NATO member-state has become a key hub through which Western-made electronics, including processors, memory cards and amplifiers, are making their way to Russia, where, allegedly, they are being used for the production of missiles and drones, the FT wrote in an article on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An unnamed Commerce Department official told the paper that the US considers Ankara, which refused to join the Western sanctions campaign against Moscow, to be Russia\u2019s second largest source of American dual-use goods, after China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
T\u00fcrkiye must \u201chelp\u201d Washington stop the flow of US technology to Moscow, Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the department\u2019s Bureau of Industry and Security, Matthew Axelrod, said in a statement to FT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We need to see progress, and quickly, by Turkish authorities and industry or we will have no choice but to impose consequences on those that evade our export controls,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a commerce-department official, Axelrod told Turkish government members during his recent visit to Ankara and Istanbul that they should \u201cwork harder\u201d to curb what he called \u201cillicit trade\u201d with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The export-enforcement official made it clear then that it was an \u201curgent problem\u201d and called on Ankara to \u201cadopt and enforce a ban on the transshipment of US controlled items to Russia,\u201d the source told FT. Axelrod also told Turkish officials that Moscow was simply \u201ctrying to exploit Turkey\u2019s trade policy\u201d to access American-made products, the FT reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commerce department has already put 18 Turkish companies on its \u2018Entities List\u2019 for allegedly supplying dual-use goods to Russia. US firms now require a special license to sell sensitive goods to the entities listed. \u201cYou can expect to see more of that, going forward, unless and until there is progress,\u201d the official stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In June, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was aware of the \u201cunprecedented pressure\u201d that is being applied on T\u00fcrkiye by the US and its allies over their cooperation with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Representatives of the West \u201ccome to Ankara, they gather officials and business leaders and blatantly threaten them… This is absolutely shameless behavior,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trade between Russia and T\u00fcrkiye will continue, Peskov said, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan \u201cquite convincingly\u201d defends the interests of his country. Moscow and Ankara are \u201clooking for ways to bypass this pressure from the Westerners, and we will definitely find them,\u201d he vowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n