Iraq’s Deputy National Security Advisor Safa Al-Sheikh Hussein has stated that Turkey is the country that greases the wheels of the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by allowing the extremist group to export oil via Turkey.
“They have a stream of assistance that comes from Turkey. They export oil through Turkey. So we conclude that organized crime groups are working in Turkey from where the oil can be exported to Europe,” Hussein said in an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman on Wednesday.
This statement from the Iraqi security official comes after US Secretary of State John Kerry said last week that ISIL financially sustains itself by exporting oil via either Turkey or Lebanon, urging Turkey to join the multinational coalition to fight against ISIL.
After the release of 46 Turkish and three Iraqi hostages by ISIL, the US expected Turkey to step up in the fight against ISIL. Turkey as a US ally is part of the NATO military alliance and has made commitments at various regional conferences to help in the effort against ISIL militants, but the help has been limited due to fears over the safety of the 49 hostages.
Hussein added that the issue of oil exports cannot be solved by one government and said it can only be eliminated by international cooperation.
According to Hussein there are 20,000 foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria and that the political instability and political crisis in Iraq, which lasted for some years, fed ISIL.
Asked to comment on recent claims about Turkey’s support for the radical jihadists, Hussein said both the general opinion among the Iraqi population and within the political community think “Turkey is extending support to ISIL.” He thinks this is not healthy for the ties between the two neighboring countries, Iraq and Turkey.
Hussein thinks the war in Syria was an opportunity for ISIL and that Turkey’s position on Syria had an influence on current developments.
“Turkey did not take the right position on Syria. Its policy and assumptions proved incorrect. We remember in 2011, the Turkish government thought that within a month there would be a regime change. But it hasn’t changed,” he said.
“We knew that it would not be an easy regime change. We thought the most probable scenario would be the division of Syria, which would threaten Iraq because the real force on the ground was beneficial for the extreme Islamists not for the people of Syria with their democratic needs,” he added.
Congratulating the Turkish government on the release of the hostages, Hussein called it “a good achievement” but questioned how it was achieved. “Some people use conspiracy theories to explain it. In Iraq, some people thought that something had been arranged from the beginning. That is not the official opinion. But some people did say these things, and they appeared in some newspapers claiming that “from the first day of the approaching threat, Turkey’s consul general in Mosul [Yılmaz Öztürk] knew about the attack on the consulate building.” But because of a lack of information, a lot of possible explanations have appeared,” he said.
KCK accuses Turkey of backing ISIL militants
A Kurdish organization has accused the Turkish government of backing the ISIL militants fighting with Kurds in Syria and suggested that it could jeopardize a truce that Kurdish militants in Turkey began in March 2013.
The statement was issued Wednesday by the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) an umbrella group of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The umbrella group accused Turkey of “waging a war against the Kurdish people” and vowed to step up its “struggle.”