Turkey’s Halkbank says US sanctions case punishment for Syria operation

Turkey’s state-run Halkbank denies any wrongdoing after US prosecutors charged it with a scheme to evade sanctions on Iran, saying the case was introduced to punish Turkey for its military operation in Syria.

The US Department of Justice said it had charged the bank with six counts of fraud, money laundering, and sanctions offenses — arguing Halkbank was guilty of “illegally giving Iran access to billions of dollars’ worth of funds.”

US prosecutors say Halkbank was involved in a massive gold-for-oil scheme that allowed around $20 billion of illegal Iranian money to be deposited with it between 2012 and 2016.

The charges “were filed as part of the sanctions introduced against our country by the US government in response to Operation Peace Spring, heroically launched by the Turkish Army to secure our borders and establish peace in the region,” Halkbank says in a statement.

Halkbank says the case “relies heavily on unreliable testimony from witnesses who lack the necessary credibility” and that prosecutors had ignored evidence and witnesses proposed by the bank.

The case comes at an extremely sensitive time between Washington and Ankara, with the US slapping sanctions on Turkey on Monday over its military offensive against Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria.

— AP