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This week Iranian-Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab went on trial in the United States for a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions between 2010 and 2015. Along with Turkish Halk Bank president Mehmet Hakan Atilla, Mr. Zarrab allegedly used Iranian funds and oil to buy gold in Turkey, then sold the gold in Dubai and forwarded the returns back to Tehran. As part of the operation, Mr. Zarrab bribed top Turkish officials, including Turkey’s finance minister and other members of the government’s cabinet.
In a plea bargain to reduce his sentence, Mr. Zarrab agreed to cooperate with American prosecutors, and his resulting testimony is producing interesting revelations. On Thursday, November 30, Mr. Zarrab testified that Turkish President Erdogan (who was Prime Minister at the time) personally ordered the scheme to help Iran evade American sanctions and enrich the coffers of Turkey and its officials in the process.
According to the BBC, Mr. Zarrab “said that he was told in 2012 by the then economy minister that Mr Erdogan…had instructed Turkish banks to participate in the multi-million dollar scheme” and that “…he paid Zafer Caglayan, then Turkey's economy minister, bribes amounting to more than 50m euros ($59m; £44m) to facilitate deals with Iran.”
President Erdogan and other Turkish government officials, including former finance minister Caglayan and former Halk Bank president Atilla (who is pleading “not guilty” in the trial) denied the allegations. The Turkish government and its controlled media even went further than denying the allegations, accusing the American judge in the case of having links with Fethullah Gulen (the reclusive Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric that the Erdogan government insists was behind the July 2016 coup attempt).
Government controlled newspapers in Turkey either sidestepped the substance of the trial in New York, choosing instead to focus on things such as Mr. Zarrab’s fashion preferences for the court room (“casual chic” on Thursday, apparently), or they carried reports such as this one from Daily Sabah:
Officials in Turkey have argued that the case has been turned into a political move against Ankara. Turkey's claims were proved after the judge overseeing the Zarrab case was linked to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), led by fugitive preacher Fetullah Gülen, who has lived in a self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. The Turkish government has accused the group of exploiting the case by illegally obtaining and fabricating evidence, including wiretap records done by now-sacked FETÖ-linked police officers. Ankara says the so-called "evidence" was illegal for a court to use under U.S. law, which requires that any piece of evidence must be obtained through legal means.
Perhaps in another attempt to distract the Turkish public from serious allegations of bribery amongst Turkey’s top government officials, prosecutors in Ankara this week also put out an arrest warrant for Graham Fuller, a former vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, for “attempting to overthrow the government of the Republic of Turkey” and “obtaining state information that must be kept secret for political and military espionage purposes,” among other charges. Mr. Fuller now joins fellow American academic Henry Barkey, who had an arrest warrant put out for him on similar charges a few months ago.
Mr. Barkey teaches at a university in Pennsylvania and was hosting a conference in Istanbul at the time of the 2016 coup attempt, which appears to be enough to indicate guilt in today’s Turkey. Mr. Fuller, in contrast, seems to represent a case of “tit-for-tat” – if the U.S. is going to try a Turkish citizen for something bad, then Turkey will do likewise to an American – based on the “evidence” that Mr. Fuller praised the Gulen movement and its leader in the past.
Will the trial of Mr. Zarrab and Mr. Attila produce anything of import, however? Besides reminding officials in Washington that Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey stopped being America’s ally as early 2010, and further straining already tense relations between the two NATO members, it seems doubtful that much will change as a result of the court case by itself. The Erdogan government will keep denying everything and distracting their public with accusations of American plots to weaken Turkey, while non-judiciary officials in Washington will keep imagining the Turkish ally they wish they had rather than the monster they continuously enable.
Mr. Zarrab may at least continue to offer important revelations, however. One of the juicier stories we anxiously await relates to alleged Turkish payments to former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and a plan to have Mr. Flynn organize the kidnapping of Fethulah Gulen from his compound in Pennsylvania – a real plot of gold, if you will.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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