Turkey’s decision to maintain strong trade ties with Russia despite Western sanctions has drawn sharp criticism from Washington. The United States has demanded that Turkey halt its exports to Russia of hardware linked to the US military, which is crucial to Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine, the Financial Times reported today. “We need Turkey to help us stop the illicit flow of US technology to Russia,” Assistant Commerce Secretary Matthew Axelrod said during recent meetings last week with Turkish officials and business leaders in Ankara and Istanbul.
The US, along with the EU and other Western allies, has imposed extensive sanctions on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, NATO member Turkey has opted to maintain robust trade relations with Russia, significantly straining its relationship with Washington. The US is particularly alarmed by the influx of Western-made electronics, including processors, memory cards and amplifiers, into Russia through Turkey. These components are vital for Russian missiles and drones, and this route bypasses export controls.
Axelrod made it clear that the US expects rapid action from Turkish authorities and industries. “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,” he warned. This statement highlights the gravity of the situation as the US presses Turkey to enforce a ban on the transhipment of US-controlled items to Russia.
Turkey’s trade ministry has refrained from commenting on these allegations. However, data indicates a significant increase in Turkey’s exports of high-priority military-linked goods to Russia and its suspected intermediaries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. In the first half of this year alone, exports surged to $85 million, up from $27 million during the same period in 2022.
A notable portion of these exports might be part of the “ghost trade,” where goods vanish and never reach their reported destinations. Despite a slight decrease from the peak levels of 2023, this trade continues to be a major concern for US authorities. The Biden administration’s executive order allowing the treatment of any foreign financial entity dealing with sanctioned Russian entities as directly aiding Russia’s military-industrial base has contributed to this dip.
The Commerce Department has already listed 18 Turkish companies on its “entities list”, necessitating special licences for American firms to sell them sensitive parts. According to a senior commerce department official, further additions to this list are likely unless significant progress is made. The Treasury Department has also sanctioned several Turkish companies for allegedly supplying Russia’s military-industrial complex.
In a show of mounting frustration, US Treasury Under-Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson voiced his concerns during a visit to Turkey late last year. He highlighted that Turkey has become a critical conduit for military-linked goods, a trend the US and its allies are determined to curb. The alliance, which includes the EU, the UK and Japan, has targeted around 50 categories of civilian products with military applications, marking them as high-priority for Russia’s war efforts.
This stance has substantially increased the costs Russia incurs to import US-origin goods from Turkey. Although as Axelrod remarked, “There’s been some recent progress . . . it’s not enough, because it’s still way too high.”
