Turkish Opposition claims trucks transporting weapons & Gold to Syria were owned by 'Humanitarian' orgs

Turkish Opposition claims trucks transporting weapons and Gold to Syria were owned by 'Humanitarian' orgs. (TZ).

So far, 54 people, including four prosecutors, senior police chiefs and high-ranking military officers, have been arrested in the MİT-truck case on charges of spying, revealing state secrets and attempting to overthrow the government.

Although the government previously claimed that the MİT trucks were carrying humanitarian aid, it failed to explain why humanitarian aid was carried by MİT trucks.

Masum Türker, leader of the Democratic Left Party (DSP), maintained, during an election rally on Saturday that the trucks did not only contain arms, but also gold bars and dollar banknotes.

According to Türker, gold bars in the trucks were the payment that Turkey made, which is a violation of the international sanctions against Iran, in return for oil bought from that country.

The radical Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has long controlled most of Turkey's border with Syria, was the agent, Türker said, through which Turkey sent the gold to Iran.

The dollars in the trucks was the money that ISIL got in return for its services, said the DSP leader, according to whom the weapons were actually placed in that shipment as a cover for the dollars.

Noting that the trucks did not belong to Turkey's intelligence organization, either, as MİT is not in charge of carrying humanitarian aid, the DSP leader said it was when the trucks were intercepted upon tipoffs from Interpol and other sources that MİT was forced to own up to the trucks.

The DSP leader's remarks vaguely imply that the trucks actually belonged to a humanitarian aid organization, an assertion that the CHP's Hatay deputy Edipoğlu also supported in his statement to the Cumhuriyet daily.

“In the context of Hatay, organizations that work under the banner of an [humanitarian] aid organization are organizing both the shipment of terrorists and ammunition [to rebel groups],” the daily quoted Edipoğlu as saying.

Another Syria-bound truck that gendarmes intercepted on Jan. 1 of last year in Hatay turned out to contain, it was reported at the time, weapons as well as humanitarian aid.

The truck was claimed to belong to the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH); however, the İHH in a written statement strongly denied any link to the truck.

According to the report, when the steel covers of the weapons-laden boxes were removed by gendarmerie officers escorted by the prosecutors based on a search warrant, boxes with a “fragile” stamp on them were visible on top of the load.

It can be seen in the video that there were boxes of antibiotics and other medicine inside, “[But] when the boxes [of medicine] were removed, mortars lying below appeared,” the report said.

CHP Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu demanded to know, in a parliamentary question he submitted regarding the Syria-bound MİT trucks, what was inside the trucks.

In the written question addressed to Prime Minister Davutoğlu, Tanrıkulu asked who had decided that the MİT trucks would be treated as a state secret.

Did the National Security Council (MGK) take a decision over the issue, Tanrıkulu asked.

The CHP deputy also demanded to know under whose name the plates of the trucks were registered and who the drivers of the trucks were. Hmmmm.....The 'Humanitarian' Org IHH has a history of 'shipments'.  More on the IHH Can be read here and here

Related: Turkey - ISIL testimony alleges involvement of Istanbul charity and heroin use.