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Erdoğan Tacitly Acknowledges Claim MİT Transported Arms To Syria

26.11.2015 13:23

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday seemingly validated claims previously made by critics who alleged that the Turkish government was sending weapon-filled trucks to radical groups in Syria by sarcastically asking, “So what if the MİT [National Intelligence Organization] trucks were filled with.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday seemingly validated claims previously made by critics who alleged that the Turkish government was sending weapon-filled trucks to radical groups in Syria by sarcastically asking, “So what if the MİT [National Intelligence Organization] trucks were filled with weapons?”

Pro-government figures had previously claimed that trucks belonging to MİT that were intercepted en-route to Syria contained “humanitarian aid” for the Bayır-Bucak Turkmens who live just over the border from Turkey's southern Hatay province. Many claims were made by the opposition and Turkish media that the trucks were, in fact, transporting weapons to radical factions in Syria.

Early in 2014, an anonymous tip led to the interception of a number of trucks on the suspicion of weapons smuggling. The first operation took place in Hatay on Jan. 1, 2014. Another anonymous tip led to three more trucks being stopped and searched in Turkey's southern Adana province on Jan. 19, 2014.

Speaking to a room full of teachers on Tuesday gathered for Teachers' Day, Erdoğan said, “You know of the treason regarding the MİT trucks, don't you? So what if there were weapons in them? I believe that our people will not forgive those who sabotaged this support.”

Erdoğan was speaking just hours after Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 aircraft near the Syrian border on Tuesday morning after, Ankara has said, it violated Turkish airspace despite repeated warnings.

Erdoğan accused the prosecutors investigating the MİT trucks of denying Turkmens the power to defend themselves. “Those [MİT] trucks were taking aid to the Bayır-Bucak Turkmens. Some were saying, ‘Prime Minister Erdoğan said, there were no weapons inside those trucks;' So what if there were?”

Justice and Development Party (AK Party) officials called the 2014 investigation of the MİT trucks “treason and espionage” on the part of the prosecutors because the trucks were claimed to be transporting humanitarian aid to the Bayır-Bucak Turkmens.

Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time, said during a television program immediately after the interception of the trucks became public knowledge that the trucks were carrying aid supplies to Turkmens in Syria.

Many high-level Turkish officials, including then-President Abdullah Gül, said the trucks' cargo was a "state secret," which led some to speculate that the trucks were carrying arms.

However, Syrian-Turkmen Assembly Vice Chairman Hussein al-Abdullah said in January 2014 that no trucks carrying aid had arrived from Turkey.

The recent military operation of the Syrian government, backed by Russian air strikes, in the rural area of Latakia, inhabited by Bayır-Bucak Turkmens has caused thousands of Turkmens to flee to the Turkish border. A Turkmen brigade commander called for Turkey's assistance and expressed his frustration that Turkey's helping hand had not been extended far enough.

Turkmen Commander Ömer Abdullah of the Sultan Abdülhamit Brigade, who is fighting against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al- Assad, recently called on Turkey to help the Turkmens being pounded with cluster bombs by the Syrian regime and Russian forces.

“We are trying to survive under unbearable brutality and we need Turkey's help,” said Abdullah. Expressing criticism of the AK Party, Abdullah said: “Every day our Turkmen brothers are dying. We expect the government to support us. Why have they abandoned us? Our martyrs fall every day. Why are we being left alone? I don't understand.”

Abdullah's claim pokes an important hole in the AK Party's claims, while also posing the question of to whom the MİT trucks, now widely accepted as transporting weapons, were sent.

CHP leader says they told AK Party not to send weapons to Syria

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said on Wednesday that Turkey had become a country importing terrorism from Syria.

“We told them [the AK Party] not to. They said they were sending humanitarian aid. Later the documents were revealed [refuting these claims].”

Kılıçdaroğlu was referring to the Cumhuriyet daily's headline story in May which discredited AK Party and Erdoğan's earlier claims that the trucks were carrying humanitarian aid to Turkmens. The article showed photos from the search of the MİT trucks which were revealed to be carrying heavy munitions. Kılıçdaroğlu consequently asked to whom the trucks were going, if not to Turkmens.

After the publication of the stills as well as video, Erdoğan lashed out at Cumhuriyet and its editor-in-chief, Can Dündar, for publishing the evidence, publicly vowing that Dündar would "pay a heavy price" for his report.

According to the report, there were six steel containers in the trucks which contained a total of 1,000 artillery shells, 50,000 machine gun rounds, 30,000 heavy machine gun rounds and 1,000 mortar shells. All of this is registered in the prosecutor's file on the MİT truck case, the report said.

Erdoğan personally sued Dündar and is requesting that he be given a life sentence, an aggravated life sentence and an additional 42-year term of imprisonment on charges related to a variety of crimes, ranging from espionage to attempting to topple the government and exposing secret information.

Following the Cumhuriyet report, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said that it is “none of anybody's business” what the trucks contained. Speaking in a live broadcast on the Habertürk news station, in May, Davutoğlu said, “This is a blatant act of espionage.”

Tuğrul Türkeş, who made it into the AK Party cabinet on Tuesday after switching from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in September, said in June that the trucks were not destined for Syrian Turkmens. Speaking on CNN Türk in June, Türkeş said: "I swear that those weapons were not sent to Turkmens as they [Erdoğan and other government officials] claim. We [the MHP] have connections with Turkmens [in Syria]."

Prosecutor admits 2,000 truckloads sent to Syria

A pro-government prosecutor who was appointed to the MİT trucks case inadvertently admitted in May that weapon-laden trucks made 2,000 trips to Syria, according to the lawyer of one of the defendants in the case.

Hasan Tok, the lawyer for former Adana Provincial Gendarmerie Regiment Commander Col. Özkan Çokay, who was involved in the search of MİT trucks in January 2014, said that he learned that there had been at least 2,000 trips made by MİT trucks to Syria from the prosecutor, Ali Doğan.

Doğan, known as a government loyalist, filed for a verdict of non-prosecution regarding the investigation after he was appointed to the position of Adana chief public prosecutor. According to Tok, Doğan had asked the defendants in a previous hearing, “2,000 trucks have passed [into Syria], why was this one specially chosen?”

“We didn't know 2,000 trucks had passed into Syria; may god bless Ali Doğan,” said Tok. (Cihan/Today's Zaman)



 
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