Trucks from Turkey allegedly loaded with weapons which were stopped on their way to Syria by prosecutors on a few occasions recently, along with allegations of Turkey offering logistical support to opposition groups, including radical ones, in the Syrian civil war may well result in trouble for Turkey under international laws, analysts have warned.“Sending weapons to a neighboring country [if documented] would cause a lot of headaches for Turkey in the longer term,” Nüzhet Kandemir, Turkey’s former ambassador to Washington, told Sunday’s Zaman.
In the most recent incident, Turkish gendarmes intercepted seven Syria-bound trucks on suspicion of carrying arms shipments in the southern province of Adana last Sunday. The gendarmes reportedly found weapons and ammunition on the trucks, the latest in a string of similar incidents, pointing to mounting concern over Turkey’s attempts to ship arms and ammunition to opposition fighters battling the Syrian regime for almost three years.
The T24 news portal claimed that after the gendarmes discovered a large number of weapons in the first three intercepted trucks, the trucks were brought to the Seyhan gendarmerie compound in Adana. Two of the trucks were filled with ammunition while another was carrying weapons, T24 said.
According to reports in the media, the prosecutor searched the trucks, which officials said belonged to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), and recorded their contents but was unable to launch any legal operation due to pressure from the government.
Reportedly, three journalists who were trying to shoot video and photos of the incident were detained by the police, who later released the journalists, but confiscated the memory cards in their cameras.
Kandemir, who is also a member of the advisory board of the American Studies Center at Bahçeşehir University, believes that Turkey risks facing legal action on international platforms such as the United Nations Security Council and the International Court of Justice in The Hague. According to the former US ambassador, if such an eventuality crops up in the future, a complaint against Turkey would first be submitted to the United Nations, just as Syria did at the end of last year, before the issue is possibly brought before a specific international legal institution.
The report about the trucks came amid a clampdown by Turkish security forces on arms shipments across the Syrian border. Turkey has faced mounting international criticism for being soft on radical groups crossing its porous borders.
At the Geneva II conference in Switzerland earlier this week, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem blamed Turkey for allowing “terrorists” to use its territory against Syria. If Turkey had not allowed its territory to be used and had not provided military training to “terrorists,” then all the violence in Syria would not have happened, Muallem maintained.
Officials have put the blame for the interception of the trucks on those trying to cause trouble for Turkey in international platforms. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was harshly critical of the prosecutors and security forces who detained the trucks. Maintaining that as per the MİT Law, prosecutors cannot stop trucks that are accompanied by MİT agents and have no right to check what is in the trucks, Erdoğan stated that everything possible would be done to punish the prosecutor and commanders who dispatched gendarmes in line with the prosecutor’s request.
According to Hüseyin Bağcı, chair of the department of international relations at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ), Turkish officials are either not aware of international law or believe they are able to explain everything by saying the whole issue is a plot against Turkey. Noting that internationally Turkey’s image is that of a country which has been sending weapons to a neighboring country and lending support to radical groups in the Syrian civil war, Bağcı told Sunday’s Zaman, “This is a dangerous initiative that may cause trouble for Turkey in the future.”
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has also been harshly criticized since the beginning of the Syrian civil war at the beginning of 2011 by opposition parties for aiding and abetting opposition groups — by hosting them in camps in Turkey and providing military training and weapons and munitions to them — fighting against the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Prime Minister Erdoğan, speaking to reporters at Ankara Esenboğa Airport before his departure for Brussels earlier this week, lashed out at main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for his statement that MİT is smuggling arms for delivery to groups fighting against Assad’s forces. “I am doubtful of the patriotism of a person who promotes his country’s intelligence agency to the world like this,” said Erdoğan.
At the end of last year, Syria, in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, accused Turkey of providing help to al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups in Syria and asked the UN Security Council to hold Turkey.
According to a report by Voice of Russia, Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari had sent the letter to Ban, as well as to the head of the UN Security Council, Alexis Lamek.
“The Turkish authorities are systematically offering help in supplying arms to terrorists operating in a number of districts, including Bab-el-Hava, Fauz, Hirbat-el-Jaus, the Gazala Village, Tel-ed-Dahab, Atima, and some others. They support the groups which every day carry out terrorist attacks against the Syrian people, government buildings, and other infrastructure facilities,” Jaafari said in the letter, according to the report.
Jaafari also said helping terrorists is a violation of the resolutions of international guidance bodies, including the resolutions of the UN Security Council.
The letter said that starting at the end of 2012, Turkey had admitted a number of terrorists from Libya, Yemen, Chechnya and Kazakhstan and helped them to enter Syria after training them at the border. According to the report, Syria gave a list of 546 Yemeni terrorists who had entered Syria from Turkey in Jaafari’s letter. Jaafari called on the UN Security Council to act responsibly and take action against Turkey and to hold Ankara accountable for its alleged aid to terrorists in Syria.
Hasan Köni, a professor of international law at İstanbul Kültür University, agrees that the issue may cause trouble for Turkey in the future, given that offering support to opposition groups fighting a regime which is considered the legitimate representative of a nation is seen as meddling in the domestic affairs of a country, an act prohibited by international law. “The issue may be taken, through the UN Security Council, to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.”
But analysts believe such a risk exists only if Turkey’s relations with its Western allies, particularly the US, deteriorate as the US would block any attempt against Turkey in the UN Security Council as long as bilateral ties are good. “As long as Turkey maintains good relations with the US, it will veto any move aiming to bring Turkey before the court in The Hague,” Köni told Sunday’s Zaman.
Last year, the US reportedly warned Turkey not to provide weapons and logistical support to radical groups in Syria. But as Bağcı of ODTÜ noted, Turkey has recently been acting in harmony with the expectations of the US. Kandemir of Bahçeşehir University shares Bağcı’s view. The US, after seemingly having reached a certain consensus on the issue with Turkey, appears to have turned a blind eye to Turkey’s recent activities on the Syrian border, Kandemir said.
The Taraf daily claimed on Thursday that arms shipments by trucks to opposition groups in Syria is a decision taken by the National Security Council (MGK), and much of the money needed to finance the purchase of weapons was taken from a discretionary fund that is at the prime minister’s disposal.
The daily claimed that most of the weapons shipped to Syria are produced in workshops in Konya and the surrounding towns. Although MİT also has a budget for such purposes, the money needed to purchase weapons is mostly taken from the Prime Ministry’s secret funds so that Turkey does not get into a difficult situation in international platforms, the daily claimed.
Umut Oran, CHP deputy chairman, had also claimed in 2012 that some of the money needed to send various supplies, including weapons, to opposition groups in Syria, had been taken from the Prime Ministry’s secret funds.
In another similar incident at the beginning of the year, Turkish gendarmes reportedly discovered weapons and ammunition on a truck bound for Syria in the southern province of Hatay. Acting on a tip-off, the gendarmes stopped a truck on a road between Kırıkhan and Reyhanlı near the Syrian border. A significant amount of ammunition and weapons were discovered, according to local reports. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said the truck was carrying humanitarian aid to Turkmens in Syria. “Everyone should mind their own business,” Ala told reporters.
In still another incident, 935 rocket warheads were seized from a truck in Adana in early November. Adana Governor Hüseyin Avni Coş had said at the time that the seizure of the weapons disproves claims that Turkey is aiding extremist groups in its war-torn neighbor.
According to Sinan Ülgen, head of the İstanbul-based Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), the reports in the media about allegedly weapon-loaded Syria-bound trucks negatively affect Turkey’s international image but he does not expect Turkey to be confronted by the UN, at the moment, under international laws due to Syria’s complaint as the international community, i.e., Turkey’s Western allies, see the regime in Syria as the main cause of the civil war in the country.
“But Turkey may be faced with problems [in the future] due to possible complaints submitted by its allies,” Ülgen told Sunday’s Zaman, a warning that Turkey should heed as its allies, mainly the US, have criticized it on a number of occasions last year for providing support to radical groups in Syria.