Turkey this month halted the transit to Russia of Western-sanctioned goods, following a year of war in Ukraine and mounting US and European pressure on Ankara to take action.said a senior export official and a diplomat.
The Turkish government has handed companies a list of banned foreign products and ordered them not to transship them to Russia from March 1, said Cetin Tecdelioglu, head of the Istanbul Association of Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals Exporters.
“All the products on that list are blocked in Russia, regardless of the country they come from,” he declared.
A European Union official told Reuters that Ankara had verbally assured the European Commission that, As of March 1, the goods will not transit to Russia whether they were subject to EU, US or UK export controls and sanctions.
The Turkish Ministry of Commerce declined to comment.
Western countries imposed record sanctions on Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
However, supply channels have remained open from Black Sea neighbor Turkey and other world trade hubs, prompting Washington last month to warn against exporting chemicals, microchips and other products that can be used in the Moscow war effort.
NATO member Ankara has tried to balance its good ties with both Moscow and kyiv amid the war. He opposes sanctions in principle, but has said they will not be circumvented in Turkey, and that no product shipped can be used by the Russian military.
‘Serious warnings’
Given the “serious warnings” of Western governments, it was an “opportunity” to avoid a confrontation with the EU, the destination for half of Turkey’s exports under a joint customs union, Tecdelioglu told reporters.
“There was a list of restrictions on re-exports from the free zones to Russia from March, and an instruction was given,” he said.
However, goods produced in Turkey, even with components from other countries, can still be shipped to Russia without restrictions, he said.
According to him, Turkey’s new restrictions have triggered Russian importers to search for alternative suppliers in Kazakhstan and other countries. “They no longer care about the cost. They just try to finish their products,” he stated.
Reuters reported last week that Russian companies have inundated their Kazakh partners in recent weeks with new requests for some of the thousands of items banned by the West, with two of the sources citing new Turkish restrictions.
At least $2.6 billion worth of computers and other electronic components entered Russia in the seven months to October 31, Reuters reported separately in December. At least 777 million of these products were made by Western companies whose chips have been found in Russian weapons systems.
