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Wikileaks Release Implicates Turkish Energy Minister in ISIS Oil Trade

posted by on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the if-you-have-the-cash-anything-is-for-sale dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes with an article about corruption and strange bedfellows in the oil trade:

WikiLeaks published on Monday a searchable archive of nearly 58,000 emails from the private email account of Berat Albayrak - Turkey's incumbent energy minister and son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – revealing the influence Albayrak has in Turkey and his correspondence regarding Powertrans, a company implicated in oil imports from ISIS-controlled oil fields.

The emails encompass 16 years between April 2000 and September 23, 2016. A search by the 'Powertrans' keyword in the published WikiLeaks emails returns 32 results, including emails sent to Albayrak regarding personnel and salary issues at Powertrans.

Turkey banned oil transportation by road or railway in or out of the country in November 2011, but included a provision in the same bill that it could revoke the ban in specific cases, such as meeting the needs of the military. The Turkish government later gave exclusive privilege to Powertrans for transit of oil, WikiLeaks says.

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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:32PM

    by zocalo (302) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:32PM (#438456)

    coincidentally sharing a common enemy with ISIS.

    That's pretty much meaningless. Just about everyone is an enemy of ISIS in Syria so, unless you actually side with ISIS directly, then any allies you might have are going to have a common enemy in ISIS, regardless of whether they are supporting Assad's regime, fighting against it, or just trying to prevent the fighting from spilling over into their part of the country.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Wednesday December 07 2016, @08:26PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @08:26PM (#438498)

    > Just about everyone is an enemy of ISIS in Syria

    Not quite. The Turkish government was happy to help ISIS fight the Kurds (oil, porous border for fighters), to avoid a Kurdish state across the border. Before ISIS, they were fine with Assad for the same exact reason.
    Whoever "wins" the Syrian war will get he support of Turkey if they prevent Kurdish independence. Similarly, anyone about to win without taking position against Kurdish independence had better be ready for some incidents with the Northern neighbor.
    Turkey isn't a one-issue player in Syria, but their main objective isn't exactly a secret.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday December 08 2016, @12:17AM

      by zocalo (302) on Thursday December 08 2016, @12:17AM (#438558)
      Yeah, that's why I included the caveat "just about everyone"; obviously *someone* is buying the oil, artifacts, and everything else they are using to fund their campaign in addition to whatever more direct funding and equipment sources they have. The relationship between Turkey and ISIS is complicated and murky though; we can be almost sure that there is one - that's been clear for quite some time - but what the aims of that relationship are, how it works, and who is involved, let alone whether it's any kind of official policy, are all far from certain. The main Turkish cause is to suppress any hopes of a Kurdish homeland - even if it does not include any part of Turkey - and there has definitely been evidence of usage of ISIS to that end, albeit perhaps as "useful idiots", even before these leaks. Previously, that was either being denied outright or written off as "rogue elements" or radicals/separatists, even if that excuse is starting to wear very thin given that they are supposedly able to determine anyone remotely connected with Gulenist movement yet unable to do the same with those connected with ISIS. With this latest set of leaks implicating someone so close to Erdogan and the extensive efforts taken by the government to suppress the leak when it broke, it's starting to look much more like an official policy, at least within the inner circle of Erdogan's regime - and yes, I think we should be calling it "a regime" now.
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      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!