Multiple Western governments, but especially the administration of Joe Biden, “have a bizarre way of sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest allies,” a new report at the Gatestone Institute explains.
The report by Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey’s leading journalists who recently was fired from the country’s most noted newspaper after 29 years for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey, says the “sanctions” actually mean flooding countries like Turkey “with rewards.”
“Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tirelessly struggles to harm Western interests. He should be punished and sanctioned for doing that. Instead, the U.N., under U.S. direction, rewarded Turkey by appointing a close Erdoğan confidant to a critical Afghan post, and the Biden administration rewarded Erdoğan by requesting congressional authorization to sell critical fighter jet parts to Turkey,” the report said.
It was Feridun Sinirlioğlu, an Erdoğan confidant, who recently was given the highly placed U.N. job.
Earlier, Putin promised to make Turkey an ‘energy hub’ by transporting Russian gas to Europe. Turkey has been buying nearly half its natural gas from Russia, and paying several billion dollars for it every year,” he pointed out.
And in an attempt to help Putin avoid sanctions, Turkey promised to pay 25% of its natural gas bill to Russia in rubles, a move that persuaded Putin to defer payments on Turkey’s $20 billion gas debt.
The report also said, “Last year, Russia’s state-run Rosatom, the company building Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, wired to its Turkish subsidiary, Akkuyu, around $5 billion, the first in a series of such transfers. Russian cash has helped plug the growing hole in Turkey’s foreign currency reserves, at a time when Erdoğan needs foreign money to boost the country’s ailing economy. Some analysts see the Rosatom-Akkuyu-dollar bonds triangle as a Turkish-Russian scheme to open a ‘parking space’ for Russian funds in Turkey.”
After all, the foreign and gold reserves of the Turkish central bank surged by some $10 billion on one day in 2022.
Then there’s a joint project, a nuclear power plant, on which the nations are working.
Erogan’s relationship with the West hasn’t been as smooth.
“Following the tragic earthquakes that devastated Turkey in February, killing more than 50,000 people, the U.S. offered humanitarian assistance, dispatching the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush. Turkey issued a statement dismissing the prospect of the U.S. carrier docking in Turkey. ‘We will not allow it,’ Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said.”
And there was a summit announced involving leaders in Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran.
It was Çavuşoğlu who described Joe Biden as “charlatan” for marking Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
Erdogan has targeted, militarily, a leader of a “key U.S. partner” in its war against ISIS, and he keeps blocking Sweden’s effort to join NATO.
He insists other nations are holding “terrorists” and that they be returned to him.
Biden, against such opposition, ” has chosen a bizarre way of reciprocity: sending ‘flowers and gifts.’”
Those schemes include a notification to Congress about the sale of avionics to upgrade Turkey’s F-16 fleet.
This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
This post originally appeared on WND News Center.