Το Στέιτ Ντιπάρτμεντ καλύπτει την Τουρκία, διαφωνεί με Γιαλόν και Καμμένο για ISIS
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
Ο εκπρόσωπος του Στέιτ Ντιπάρτμεντ Μαρκ Τόνερ εξέφρασε σήμερα την διαφωνία της κυβέρνησης των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών της Αμερικής στις δηλώσεις του Έλληνα υπουργού Άμυνας Πάνου Καμμένου και του Ισραηλινού ομολόγου του Μοσέ Γιαλόν που ανέφεραν πως η Τουρκία συνεργάζεται με το Ισλαμικό Κράτος στο λαθρεμπόριο πετρελαίου.
«Διαφωνούμε με αυτή την εκτίμηση», δήλωσε ο Τόνερ κατά την καθιερωμένη ενημέρωση των δημοσιογράφων. «Δεν έχουμε δει καμιά ροπή για αυτό, καμιά ένδειξη για αυτό», ανέφερε ο Τόνερ.
Ο Τόνερ επισήμανε ότι η Ουάσιγκτον εκτιμά πως μια τέτοια εμπλοκή δεν θα είχε νόημα οικονομικά, σημειώνοντας πως δεν υπάρχουν αποδείξεις για το ότι «υψηλόβαθμοι αξιωματούχοι της Τουρκικής κυβέρνησης», συνεργάζονται με το Ισλαμικό Κράτος στο λαθρεμπόριο πετρελαίου στο οποίο επιδίδεται.
SPUTNIK, ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ, Ουάσινγκτον, United States
Ο ΔΙΑΛΟΓΟΣ ΜΕ ΤΟΝ ΕΚΠΡΟΣΩΠΟ ΤΟΥ ΣΤΕΙΤ ΝΤΙΠΑΡΤΜΕΝΤ ΜΑΡΚ ΤΟΝΕΡ ΣΤΑ ΑΓΓΛΙΚΑ
MR TONER: Michael.
QUESTION: Related to that, the Greek and Israeli defense ministers, they called on – yesterday they called on the Turkish Government to stop supporting terrorism. The Greek defense minister said the bulk of Islamic State oil and terrorist financing flows through Turkey. How does this square with your previous statements that the Turkish Government is not involved in these areas, terrorist financing activities or the oil trade?
MR TONER: Sure. Thanks for the question, Michael. We’ve addressed this on multiple occasions. And I would also point – I don’t have the document in front of me, but we actually did a background briefing with a senior State Department official who really walked through why this wasn’t a valid allegation or accusation to say that Turkey was actually smuggling ISIL or Daesh oil. It didn’t make, first of all, economic sense at all, but secondly, there was just no evidence to those allegations that there was some kind of high-level Turkish Government involvement in some oil smuggling. That just – we just have not seen any inclination to that, any kind of sign of that.
QUESTION: The Greek —
MR TONER: So we —
QUESTION: Well, they have it wrong? Sorry, go ahead.
MR TONER: So we disagree with that assessment.
QUESTION: Even if there’s no hard evidence, are you concerned about neglect facilitating this process? Do they need to crack down on extremists more and —
MR TONER: I mean, I think – look. First of all, as we all know, smuggling along that area or in that area is frankly centuries old. There’s established smuggling routes, and those are persistent and they’re difficult to squelch altogether. I just – and we, the United States, reject the premise that the Turkish Government is somehow in league with ISIL to smuggle oil. We just see no evidence to support that accusation.
QUESTION: But is it more they’re looking the other way, though, not necessarily in league?
MR TONER: I can’t – look, I can’t say that there’s no type of smuggling going – taking place along the border. There may well be. But it doesn’t make economic sense. It’s not how ISIL moves its commodity. And frankly, we’ve seen that ISIL has – the more prevalent practice is for ISIL to sell its oil at the wellhead, the point of production, in Syria and in Iraq, frankly. And the oil is sold directly to smugglers and middlemen and truckers rather than ISIL kind of engaging in some broad distribution network. It’s quite the opposite.
ΠΗΓΗ: State Department briefing, January 27, 2016