{"id":67774,"date":"2013-03-15T08:52:11","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T06:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=67774"},"modified":"2014-01-08T01:18:51","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T23:18:51","slug":"nuke-program-turkeys-got-an-app-for-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2013\/03\/15\/nuke-program-turkeys-got-an-app-for-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuke Program? Turkey\u2019s Got an App for That"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reports: Germans accuse Turkey of exporting items with \u2018nuclear applications\u2019 to Iran<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
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\"Mahmoud<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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BY:\u00a0Adam Kredo
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German prosecutors have accused Turkey of exporting to Iran nearly 1,000 items with \u201cnuclear applications,\u201d according to German and Turkish media reports.<\/p>\n

German prosecutors allege Iran has established multiple \u201cfront companies\u201d in Istanbul,\u00a0accordingto\u00a0Today\u2019s Zaman<\/i>, an English-language publication in Turkey. These illicit companies are believed to have shipped nuclear-related material back to Iran.<\/p>\n

Kristen Silverberg, a former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, said Iran has a history of using front companies as a means to skirt sanctions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranian regime has a long practice of using front companies\u201d to evade sanctions and conduct illicit business affairs, Silverberg, who serves as president of United Against Nuclear Iran, a non-partisan advocacy group, told the\u00a0Washington Free Beacon<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Iran has \u201creally perfected the art of sanctions evasion, and we\u2019ve seen them do that in response to every round [of sanctions], which is why it\u2019s so important for the U.S. and its allies to\u00a0identify\u00a0the front companies and continue to sanction them and any country abetting them,\u201d Silverberg said.<\/p>\n

News\u00a0of the nuclear exports comes just days after German and Turkish officials busted several Iranian smugglers\u00a0suspected\u00a0of transferring nuclear goods from India to Iran.<\/p>\n

German and Turkish officials conducted raids in each country on Monday, capturing several Iranian suspects. Three other suspects remain at large.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2012 German police detected that materials with nuclear applications obtained in Germany and India were transported to the Mitech company in Iran through Turkey by an Iranian national, Hossein Tanideh,\u201d\u00a0Today\u2019s Zaman<\/i>\u00a0quoted\u00a0the German report as saying.<\/p>\n

Tanideh was captured in Turkey earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cGermany\u2019s Federal Criminal Police Office, which is also the German branch of Interpol, informed its counterpart in Turkey about Tanideh\u2019s dealings, and Tanideh was arrested,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n

German officials were reportedly able to trace Tanideh\u2019s activities to back several of the Iranian front companies.<\/p>\n

The investigation revealed that Tanideh was tied to several business owners who were exporting material to Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of the investigation, a thorough search was conducted at IDI, a foreign trade company owned by Tanideh,\u201d\u00a0Today\u2019s Zaman<\/i>\u00a0reported. \u201cPolice raided the main office of the company in Bak\u0131rk\u00f6y, \u0130stanbul, and seized all the documents in the office.\u201d<\/p>\n

The seized documents showed that Tanideh and one of his business associates \u201csent the materials with nuclear applications they got from Germany and India to Mitech in Iran and declared them as plumbing parts and fixtures,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n

Turkish police are believed to have learned from these documents that 91 nuclear-related items were funneled from Germany to Turkey on multiple occasions before making their way to Iran.<\/p>\n

Another 856 nuclear items were shipped from India to Turkey and then to Iran at various points, according to the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite six years of sanctions Iran is still capable of procuring critically vital, made-in-Europe dual use technology for its nuclear weapons\u2019 program,\u201d said Emanuele Ottolenghi, a Germany-based senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.<\/p>\n

\u201cDozens of front companies still operate in Europe under the nose of local authorities,\u201d he said. \u201cThe mushrooming of Iranian companies in Turkey is clearly related\u2014obtaining export licenses to this NATO member state is relatively easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

By using Turkey as a conduit, \u201cIran is able to elude sanctions,\u201d Ottolenghi explained. \u201cEuropean authorities must do much more to stop this traffic and demand much more vigilance from Turkey since, by now, there are more than 3,000 Iranian companies registered in Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran sanctions experts questioned whether Turkish officials had quietly allowed these shipments to take place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big question is: Did Ankara know about this procurement network before the Germans blew the lid off?\u201d said Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department.<\/p>\n

Iran and Turkey continue to expand business ties.<\/p>\n

\u201cA good number of Iranian-financed firms have set up shop in Turkey recently,\u201d\u00a0Today\u2019s Zaman<\/i>\u00a0reported. \u201cIn January this year, there were 28 Iranian-funded foreign companies established in Turkey, which ranked just behind German investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turkey has been implemented in a series of troublesome actions meant to skirt Western sanctions on Iran.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s Halkbank, a majority state-owned lender, faced scrutiny for carrying out so-called \u201cgold for oil\u201d transactions with Iran. It is believed that Turkey traded more than 60 tons of gold in exchange for Iranian crude oil.<\/p>\n

Regional reports have also indicated that Turkey may trade ships to Iran in exchange for oil in another scheme meant to skirt Western sanctions.<\/p>\n

Turkey has also been suspected of\u00a0funding\u00a0the terror group Hamas, leading experts to wonder if the nuclear-export fiasco reveals a growing terrorism problem in Turkey.<\/p>\n

These exports, \u201ccoupled with Halkbank\u2019s gas for gold scheme, coupled with Hamas funding, coupled with Turkey\u2019s failure for five years to comply with international standards for terror finance laws paints a very troubling picture of Turkey,\u201d said Schanzer, who serves as vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.<\/p>\n

Former Pentagon adviser Michael Rubin said these front companies appear legitimate but are actually tools of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe economic wing of the Revolutionary Guards runs a number of front companies for seemingly legitimate purposes,\u201d Rubin said. \u201cThe Iranians can use these companies\u2019 Turkish partners to access a lot of dual use technology that Iran could never import directly.\u00a0That\u2019s hard enough to keep track of under normal circumstances, but we\u2019re saddled with a Turkish government that sees Obama\u2019s professed friendship as evidence that they can literally get away with murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

This entry was posted in\u00a0Middle East,\u00a0National Security\u00a0and tagged\u00a0Germany,\u00a0Hossein Tanideh,\u00a0Jonathan Schanzer,\u00a0Nuclear Iran,\u00a0Today’s Zaman,\u00a0Turkey. Bookmark thepermalink.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reports: Germans accuse Turkey of exporting items with \u2018nuclear applications\u2019 to Iran BY:\u00a0Adam Kredo March 14, 2013 1:18 pm German prosecutors have accused Turkey of exporting to Iran nearly 1,000 items with \u201cnuclear applications,\u201d according to German and Turkish media reports. German prosecutors allege Iran has established multiple \u201cfront companies\u201d in Istanbul,\u00a0accordingto\u00a0Today\u2019s Zaman, an English-language […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":67775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,62],"tags":[8919],"class_list":["post-67774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-germany","category-iran_","tag-nuclear-smuggling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}