Bloomberg learned details about Turkey's restriction of the transit of goods to Russia

The source of the agency said that Turkey on March 1 stopped the transit of goods subject to US sanctions and EU. As the head of the Optimalog company specified to RBC,

Amid pressure from Washington, the Turkish government ordered a halt to the transit of goods subject to US and EU sanctions from March 1, Bloomberg reported, citing a senior Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to the agency, over the past year, Turkey has become one of the main re-exporters of Western products to Russia, increasing trade with Moscow to $9.3 billion in 2022 from $5.8 billion a year earlier. According to Bloomberg, this created difficulties for the US and the EU, which have long pressured Ankara to comply with the sanctions.

Mustafa Boyacioglu, chief executive officer of Istanbul-based customs company Subasi, confirmed to Bloomberg that the export of sanctioned goods to Russia was blocked. “In general, there should be no problems with products that were first imported to Turkey and then sent to Russia, but we are not even sure about this, since the restrictions seem to be based on the country of origin of the products,” Boyacioglu said.

The fact that Turkey began to block the transit of sanctioned goods for parallel imports to Russia was reported by Kommersant FM the day before. Experts interviewed by RBC noted that the first refusals to process transit cargo, where Russia was indicated as the country of destination , began on March 6. The Russian embassy and trade mission said they were investigating the reasons for stopping the transit of some goods to the country through Turkey.

As Georgy Vlastopulo, CEO of Optimalog, clarified to RBC, it is also impossible to issue transit declarations for goods that are currently at Turkish airports. “We cannot fly out according to the agreed bookings, and here the situation has not changed yet. As for the auto-cargo terminals, it is possible to register the cargo under the TIR procedure there. In other cases, the system can either block transit clearance or let it through,” he said.

He called an update in the international European NCTS system, which controls the transit of all goods, a possible reason for blocking transit. “After the introduction of the tenth package of sanctions, the European part of the system began to block the clearance of the transit of sanctioned goods, but the Turkish segment of the system began to block transit everywhere. <...> The delay in the delivery of goods is about seven days so far, this is not critical, but if we do not see any improvements, then the question arises of how to get out of the situation,” Vlastopulo added.

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Alesya Litvinenko, head of the STALOGISTIC western procurement sector, previously explained to RBC that Turkey's decision was due to the fact that it is a member of the customs union with the European Union. The clearance of goods of European and American origin de facto takes place in the European customs system, which has a ban on the export of sanctioned goods to Russia, while de jure Ankara did not impose sanctions against Moscow.

Ivan Golovko, head of international trucking at Noytech Supply Chain Solutions, pointed out that goods of Turkish origin and not subject to sanctions are processed without obstacles. According to experts, Iran and the United Arab Emirates can become an alternative to Turkey for the transit of sanctioned goods to Russia.

Bloomberg reported in early February that the US had urged Turkey to "restrict the flow of goods" to Russia. The interlocutors of the agency, referring to Washington data, said that between March and October 2022, Turkish exporters sent goods worth about $800 million to Russia, some of which could be used by the defense industry. Washington has previously warned Ankara about the risk of secondary sanctions for violating the restrictive measures against Russia.