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Turkey route for smuggling weapons to Iraq, Syria terrorists: UN

Iran Press TV

Wed Dec 31, 2014 7:35AM GMT

The UN says Turkey is being used as a main route for smuggling weapons to terrorist groups operating in Iraq and Syria.

Militant groups such as the ISIL and the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front in Iraq and Syria have been receiving weapons and equipment smuggled "primarily by routes that run through Turkey," read a Tuesday report by the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Implementation Monitoring Team.

They have also seized some of their weapons "from the armed forces of Iraq or (to a lesser extent) the Syrian Arab Republic," the report added.

Senior Iraqi and Syrian officials have repeatedly criticized Turkey over links to the militants, including Turkish involvement in buying oil from both the ISIL and al-Nusra Front.

The ISIL militants "control a number of oil fields in Syria and Iraq and they smuggle this oil overland through trucks, through middlemen to Turkey or towards other countries," Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari told Al-Jazeera news channel on December 12.

Germany has recently blasted Turkey for its support for the ISIL Takfiri militants.
NATO must force Turkey to stop its undeclared support for ISIL militants, said Claudia Roth, deputy speaker of the German parliament, in a recent interview with Kurdish newspaper Rudaw.

"Germany must put pressure on Turkey to change course and reevaluate its policies. It should also ask NATO members to do the same," Roth stated.

"Turkey has also allowed weapons to be transported into Syria through its borders. Also that the ISIS (ISIL) has been able to sell its oil via Turkey is extraordinary," the German MP noted.

Reports say some extremists willing to join the ISIL militants cross the Turkish border into Syria in trucks belonging to the World Food Organization and other NGOs.

This comes as the Turkish daily Aydinlik said in a recent report that the ISIL terrorists have opened a consulate in the Cankaya district of the Turkish capital Ankara.

The militants are said to be operating freely inside Turkey without much problem.

MSM/HJL/HRB