{"id":25489,"date":"2020-03-30T17:05:06","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T17:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/?p=25489"},"modified":"2020-03-30T17:05:06","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T17:05:06","slug":"erdogan-should-be-tried-by-international-criminal-court-for-supporting-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/?p=25489","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan Should be Tried by International Criminal Court for Supporting Terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erdogan Should be Tried by International Criminal Court for Supporting Terrorism<\/p>\n

MARCH 18, 2020 – BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN, PUBLISHER, THE CALIFORNIA COURIER:<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00abAPPLICATION for membership of the Republic of Western Armenia (the State of Armenia) in the United Nations<\/a>\u00bb\u00bb<\/p>\n

Last week, I reported that Pres. Erdogan\u2019s office sent a letter to the heads of religious minorities in Turkey demanding that they sign it and send it back to the President. In that letter, Erdogan falsely
\nclaimed that Turkey was alone on the forefront of the fight against international terrorism.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Erdogan\u2019s claims, there have been dozens of reports in the international media proving that Turkey was in fact on the forefront of those assisting ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n

Ahmet S. Yayla is someone who has first-hand knowledge of the Turkish government\u2019s support for ISIS as he was the chief of counterterrorism and operations in Turkey from 2010 to 2013, and chief of public order and criminal investigations in Sanliurfa, Turkey, from 2013 to 2014. Sanliurfa was the endpoint of the ISIS \u201cjihadi highway.\u201d Yayla wrote an in-depth article on March 6, 2020, in The Investigative Journal, exposing Erdogan\u2019s complicity in terrorism. The article was titled, \u201cTry Erdogan at the International Criminal Court for Enabling ISIS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yayla wrote that he had to leave his job in 2014 and retire \u201cin order not to be involved with Erdogan\u2019s atrocities, which rise to the level of crimes against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Yayla, \u201cISIS would not have swelled to power or killed so many if the Erdogan regime had not decided to support it directly or indirectly from its emergence in 2014. The fact is, when ISIS set up shop in Raqqa [Syria] in 2014, the Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) was guarding its front door and putting out an elaborate welcome mat for jihadist volunteers on their way to martyrdom. Turkey was a central hub for the travel of over 50,000 ISIS foreign fighters, and the main source of ISIS logistical materials, including the majority of ISIS IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices], making Turkey and ISI practically allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yayla also quoted an October 2019 U.S. Department of State publication which reported that \u201cTurkey remains a transit point for foreign fighters looking to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which could help the terrorist group to reorganize and regain influence.\u201d The U.S. Government further warned that \u201cforeign fighters transiting through Turkey could help Islamic State to regenerate.\u201d ISIS was able to relocate many of its high-profile and senior members to Turkey, where they ran the terrorist organization\u2019s day-to day operations.<\/p>\n

Yayla reported that \u201con December 3, 2019, terrorist kingpin Hamid Shakir Saba\u2019 al-Badri\u2014cousin of deceased Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi \u2014was captured south of Kirkuk, Iraq, having returned from his safe haven in Turkey. A Turkish ISIS prisoner in Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) custody told journalist Lindsey Snell about a giant safe house ISIS maintained in Gaziantep, Turkey. The prisoner said, \u2018there were so many foreigners there; so many different languages. They (Turkey) knew what we were there for.\u2019\u201d\u00b7<\/p>\n

Since Turkish leaders assisted ISIS, there was widespread support for ISIS among the Turkish public. Reuters reported that according to \u201cTurkey\u2019s Social Trends Survey,\u201d conducted by an Ankara think tank, 9.3% of the respondents stated that ISIS was not a terrorist organization, with 5.4% supporting its actions.<\/p>\n

According to PEW research, 8% of the Turkish population had a favorable view of ISIS. As a result, according to a recent Combating Terrorism Center report, Turks contributed the highest number of fighters to ISIS. There were up to 9,476 Turkish ISIS terrorists, whereas there were more than 900 Azerbaijanis in the ranks of ISIS.<\/p>\n

Turkey was also the source of continued supply of various materials for ISIS, including boots, uniforms, vests, food and most importantly explosives. Quoting from Conflict Armament Research (CAR), Yayla reported that ISIS had \u201cfirst, a major acquisition network operating in Turkey and, second, a clear supply route from Turkey, through Syria, to Iraq.\u201d CAR also revealed that \u201cTurkey is the most important chokepoint for components used in the manufacture of IEDs\u201d by the Islamic State. In fact, CAR documented that ISIS fighters \u201csource most of the products used in the manufacture of weapons and ammunition from the Turkish domestic market.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Erdogan Should be Tried by International Criminal Court for Supporting Terrorism<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Turkish journalist, Tolga Tanis, was fired and slapped with a libel investigation filed by Pres. Erdogan, when Tanis revealed how Turkish companies were exporting explosive materials to ISIS.<\/p>\n

Yayla also reported that \u201con November 18, 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Turkish brothers, Ahmet and Ismail Bayaltun, as Turkey-based \u2018ISIS procurement agents\u2019 in addition to four ISIS-linked companies operating in Syria and Turkey. Bayaltun brothers were known for their role in supplying ISIS, specifically shipping 48 tons of aluminum paste to be used in ISIS IEDs. More importantly, the Bayaltun brothers had a close relationship with AKP chairman Mustafa Bayaltun in Sanliurfa, where their office is located.\u201d<\/p>\n

The role of the Turkish National Intelligence (MIT) in supporting terrorism was revealed when the Turkish police stopped three trucks operated by MIT on January 19, 2014, and found military-grade weapons hidden underneath medicine boxes being transported to Syria.<\/p>\n

Beyond supporting terrorism, Pres. Erdogan also purchased ISIS oil through a Turkish front company named Powertrans controlled by his son-in-law Berat Albayrak, according to Yayla. \u201cAlbayrak paid up to $3 million a day at the height of ISIS oil production. In fact, Erdogan passed a bill to grant the rights to transfer oil by tanker and contracted Powertrans without a public bid as the sole authorized company. In addition to purchasing the ISIS oil, Erdogan tasked his son, Bilal Erdogan, through his Maltese shipping company, the BMZ Group, to sell ISIS oil on the world market.\u201d In addition, Turkish money transfer centers passed hundreds of thousands of dollars a day to ISIS.<\/p>\n

Yayla concluded: \u201cIn the end, ISIS would not have killed, wounded, enslaved, and raped thousands of innocent people without the vast support it enjoyed through Turkey. Erdogan and his co-conspirators must be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for their crimes against humanity\u2026. Turkish President Erdogan and his co-conspirators have blood on their hands. Based on the well-documented, incontestable, and undeniable evidence [that] exists, it is clear that Erdogan has been directly and indirectly supporting ISIS.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE – This picture shows part of the 5.000 children from Kharput en route on donkey back and foot. “Story of Near East Relief” by James L. Barton, New York, 1930, p. 152<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

www.thecaliforniacourier.com\/erdogan-should-be-tried-by-international-criminal-court-for-supporting-terrorism\/<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erdogan Should be Tried by International Criminal Court for Supporting Terrorism MARCH 18, 2020 – BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN, PUBLISHER, THE CALIFORNIA COURIER: \u00ab\u00abAPPLICATION for membership […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25491,"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25489\/revisions\/25491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lousavor-avedis.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}