Corruption Investigation Bombards US-Iran-Turkey Triangle

The ongoing bribery investigation in Turkey has revealed the fact that the unknowns about the “Iran-Halkbank-gold” triangle outnumber the knowns. Since the United States and European Union countries imposed sanctions on Iran in 2010, financial operations and transactions with Iran have been exposed to severe restrictions. As of March 2012, Iran has also been banned from using the international money-transfer system SWIFT. Hence it had become impossible to transfer money to and from Iran.
Since Turkey was unable to pay for the natural gas and oil it has been buying from Iran through routine channels, it opened a bank account for Iran at Halkbank to hold the amount equivalent to its purchase. And Iran converted the deposits in these accounts to gold, later transferring it back to the country. 

The U.S. has been grouching about this complicated system for a long time. Last April, 47 representatives in the U.S. Congress signed a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew calling for sanctions against Halkbank for its operations. They claimed that Halkbank has been used as a conduit to evade sanctions by Turkey and Iran. Last week David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury’s Undersecretary of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, visited Turkey right after the operation and said the latest rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran does not mean that sanctions have been relaxed. He reportedly urged Turkey to show the required sensitivity on the issue and reiterated the warnings made to Turkey many times before. The U.S. also banned gold exports to Iran in July 2013. So was it right for Turkey to continue the gold exchange? Jonathan Schanzer from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies says that even if not directly against the sanctions, this system is against the spirit of the sanctions. Halkbank, on the other hand, has always been denying the claims that it has been evading the sanctions on Iran. 

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