türk yetkililer esad rejiminin silah ticaretine göz mu yumuyor?

Syria is using Turkey as a route to bypass sanctions and obtain material and equipment for its weapons industry, intelligence sources have told The Times.
While the European Union is today set to tighten sanctions on the Government of President Bashar Assad, weapons materials from Iran, China and elsewhere may be getting in through Turkey, in spite of Ankara’s tough public stance against Damascus.
“We don’t think that the Turkish Government is openly encouraging the trade but some officials know about it,” one Middle Eastern intelligence source told The Times. “Let’s say they are turning a blind eye.”
Three Turkish companies are selling equipment to a Syrian government research institute that makes vehicle armour and ammunition for the police and the army, the source alleged.
At the heart of the operation is the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC) in Syria, currently subject to US and EU sanctions. According to an intelligence document seen by The Times, it is “assisting the Syrian security forces by producing weapons used . . . to violently suppress protests and commit war crimes.”
The document named two Turkish manufacturing companies allegedly supplying SSRC with missile manufacturing material. Both companies deny the allegations. A third firm alleged to be involved in the transfer of Chinese-made machine tools to SSRC for possible use in missile production did not respond to a request for comment.

“Some of the weapons produced by SSRC are supplied to the Syrian military, while others end up in the hands of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon,” the document read.
It has also been alleged that the Turkish Government Scientific and Technological Research Council, TÜBITAK, is assisting SSRC with research. TÜBITAK did not respond to a request for comment.
A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman described the allegations as “nonsense”, pointing out that Ankara had recently blocked Syrian weapons shipments. Last month Turkish customs officials intercepted four Iranian trucks carrying missile materials destined for Syria.
Turkey considers itself legally bound only by UN sanctions, but it has taken its own measures against the Syrian regime, including an arms embargo.
SSRC has been subject to US economic sanctions since 2005 for co-operating with Iran and North Korea and for providing arms to Hezbollah. It is also listed under EU sanctions imposed in December last year.
According to the intelligence source, SSRC disguises its procurement of weapons-related material by making false declarations to export authorities and using brokers and cover companies in different countries.
“After sanctions by the EU, the Syrians are having difficulty purchasing equipment. Turkey is the hub,” said the intelligence source. “The Turks were closing their eyes to this trade. Now [they] have one eye open.”
An engineering company denied the suggestion in the intelligence document that it was in negotiations with a Syrian brokerage firm to sell equipment for possible missile production. It told The Times it had never sold military-related goods except to the Turkish military, and it had not dealt with Syrian companies for the past 18 months. “We are not in such a business and we have never been in such a business,” said the foreign trade and marketing manager.
A steel and aluminium casting company denied it supplied Syria with material for missile production in June last year. Its general manager said: “Up until now we have done no trade in military equipment either domestically nor externally. Yet if casting steel and aluminium pieces is regarded as military equipment, we have nothing to say.”
The intelligence document said Turkey and Syria had a 560-mile border and close business links. The two countries signed a free trade agreement in 2004, and the annual trade volume between them grew to £1.3 billion in 2010.
In 2009, Ankara and Damascus agreed to cooperate on science and technology research, which included the signing of a protocol between TÜBITAK and its Syrian counterpart, the Supreme Council of the Higher Commission for Scientific Research. But Turkey cut ties when President Assad ignored its pleas to end violent repression and it now demands his resignation.
The EU sanctions to be announced today will include a freeze on Syria’s central bank assets and a ban on imports of Syrian precious metals. Cargo flights from Syria are also to be refused.
Seven more Syrian government ministers and senior officials will be banned from travel in the EU and their assets there will be frozen in another attempt to raise pressure on the regime. The seven are all blamed for human rights abuses. The new measures, to be approved at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, will complement an existing embargo on Syrian oil and extend the list of more than 100 people already subject to sanctions.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, is due to meet the Syrian opposition ahead of a gathering next month in Istanbul discussing ways of toppling the regime.The intelligence allegations will not help Ankara’s ambitions to be the West’s primary anchor in the region.