The Financial Times reported Saturday that Western nations are unhappy with Turkey’s growing ties with Russia and that Ankara could potentially face sanctions for its pledge to increase trade with Moscow.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Friday, and the two leaders agreed to expand cooperation on trade and energy.
Erdogan has emerged as a broker between Ukraine and Russia, while most NATO leaders have completely abandoned the idea of diplomacy with Moscow. The Turkish president’s efforts have born fruit and led to the deal that has facilitated grain exports out of Ukraine for the first time since Russia invaded on February 24.
Despite the progress on grain, Western diplomats told the Financial Times that they are “concerned” about Turkey and Russia’s growing ties and the pledge to increase economic cooperation and warned that action could be taken against Ankara.
The US has said it could enforce “secondary sanctions” against countries that continue to do business with Russia, and Turkey could be a potential target. Ankara has previously been sanctioned by the US for purchasing Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems.
One Western official told Financial Times that countries could act against Turkey by “calling on Western firms to either pull out of relationships in Turkey, or to shrink their relationships with Turkey.” Other officials downplayed the idea of taking such a harsh step against Turkey but did not rule out taking “negative action” against Ankara if it gets “too close” to Moscow.
The West seems to behaving in a very dictatorial way… Of course NATO owns its ass but it seems like a little re-shuffling is in the works and it will be interesting to see how things continue to unfold and where it all leads…
It’s a dangerous game the U.S. is playing hoping to hang onto its hegemony. Weakened and fallen behind, but acting like it is stronger than ever. Sure makes “Hubris Precedes a Great Fall” easy to see. As all these regional conflicts have no real effect on U.S. hegemony until the U.S. starts to crank up the pressure. Then they can turn into the “Call” that will eventually set the real order of a great reset in the hegemon++
y schemes of the great powers. Having Biden at the helm portends messy procedings which one only HOPE doesn’t blow in Tiwan or some other place or way which unleashes the “all options” we have heard so mucheck about, but never seen.”
This is straight out of Bizzaro World. US cannot enforce sanctions anywhere in the world — so has to threaten a NATO member! What about India? Not a peep. Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Indonesia? Argentina? Brazil?
No, Turkey has nit been obedient. Organizing peace talks, offering its services in a complex mechanism for opening cortidors for shipping grain, fertilizers for both Ukraine and Russia.
We know this is not desirable. The issue was not hungry peope — but whining about Russia blocking Black Sea. With this proven to be fake news, and Ukrsine running out of excuses. it was forced ro demine its own ports, and get in with it. Russia and Turkey forever had robust trade relations. Turkey is popular turist destination for Russians, and Russian credit cards are accepted in Turkey. Russia is building nuclear power plant in Turkey, and has provided advances for its construction, a needed cash influx for. Urrdncy CONSTANTLY under attack by Western financial institutions. Turkey is stating the ibvious — one cannot have a peace in Ukraine without talkung to Russia. Turkey controls Bosphorus, and having a country with an independent streak in NATO — is a problem. US refused to dell Patriots to Turkey, si they bought S-400.
Since tgere is no provision for kucking someone out of NATO,Turkey sees no reason to leave voluntarily.’
Well put. Goes to show the US is fast loosing its power to influence other countries.
None of the other countries are as far as I know contemplating breaking the sanctions, as in they are not exporting sanctioned goods to Russia or allowing Russia to circumvent the banking restrictions – or are you aware of them doing so?
It is standard sanctioning practice, when the US imposed sanctions on Iran, even if there was very little support for such sanctions in Europe our companies complied with the sanctions as they would otherwise be hit by such secondary sanctions.
Maybe these would provide some insights:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/22/biden-mbs-oil-saudi-arabia-russia-ukraine/
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2022-08-04/ty-article/russia-may-be-circumventing-oil-restrictions-via-egypt-report-says/00000182-688a-d9c2-afa6-ffbac4bc0000?_amp=true
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/egypt-is-cozying-up-to-russia-its-time-for-the-us-to-step-in/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-12/india-plans-2-billion-more-of-exports-to-sanctions-hit-russia
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/india
-ukraine-russia-us-sanctions-7857844/lite/
The 1st foreignpolicy one is calling on US to sanction Saudi Arabia, not for breaking sanctions but for failing to condemn the Russians and not adhering to an OPEC scheme.
The 2nd (Haaretz) does not work for me Error 403 Forbidden
The 3rd is about the US ‘should’ act because Egypt is buying Russian technology – as EU is buying gas this is either absurd double standards or just idiocy – there are sanctions on tech exports to Russia not purchasing Russian energy or tech.
The 4th (Bloomberg) is the first that actually approach breaking sanctions:
But it is here central to mention that EU and AFAIK the US still exports medicines to Russia.
More problematic is what may come:
Though here we are talking about potential future sanctions busting – not current.
The 5th takes me to an article about sports…
“ Though here we are talking about potential future sanctions busting – not current.”
The same thing is mentioned in the article in regards to Turkey.
There are many countries breaking the sanctions . But pick and choose which country to target is the norm.
Try this
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/india-
ukraine-russia-us-sanctions-7857844/lite/
Thanks for replying, but the link again takes me to a sports news article if remove the https:// from the start and replace all . with DOT then I can reconstruct it.
which is rather the point – there are a lot of people thinking that no one should buy stuff from Russia – seeing as not even EU has stopped buying energy from Russia this is not a requirement.
The sanctions currently applies to high tech equipment and exports of a line of other key products to Russia – there are AFAIK no restrictions on any nation regarding what they may buy from Russia (the sanctioning nations have restrictions but these apply only to themselves).
Could you mention just one country breaking the sanctions.
If we sanction Turkey, which has been remarkably productive compared to the US/EU counterparts in trying to mediate to end the Ukraine War, what’s to stop them from hard vetoing NATO expansion? They are a founding member after all.
Anyways, “sovereignty” only applies to countries that support Western goals and everyone who don’t deserve any.
Turkey was not a founding member of NATO, but they can veto the application of any new NATO country – AFAIK there is not a lot the other NATO countries can do to prevent it – they might apply additional sanctions but they could not justify these on Turkey’s NATO veto.
How is applying sanctions to a country ‘disapplying’ or disrespecting that countries sovereignty – it’s just applying secondary sanctions to a country if it decides to violate the sanctions on Russia – Turkey is in everyway still sovereign.
Secondary sanctions are blatant attempts to curtail the sovereign decisions of other nations. Nations, presumably, have the right to trade with whomever they wish. When the USA says, “No, you will not trade with So and So, and if you do we will do these various things to harm you,” well, that, obviously, is meant to bully that nation into docile compliance. A bullied nation is one whose sovereignty has been disrespected, and limited, if not entirely “disapplied [sic].”
“In legal terms…states may consider secondary sanctions to violate the principle of non-intervention, and to be extraterritorial in nature, in violation of constraints imposed by the international law of jurisdiction, in addition to other potential breaches….
“US sanctions do not only govern economic relations between the US and the target state (‘primary sanctions’), but also relations between third states and target states (‘secondary sanctions’). These secondary sanctions do not just aim to coerce targeted states to change political course, but also third states… As secondary sanctions limit third states’ sovereignty to freely conduct their external economic relations with other states, they raise deep legitimacy questions.”
https://academic.oup.com/bybil/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bybil/braa007/5909823
It also pretty telling to me that you write in terms of “violating the sanctions,” as if the US-imposed sanctions were some sort of authoritative regime, as opposed to the simple power projection that they are. US, as opposed to UN, sanctions, do not have the force of international law. No nation is bound to accept or comply with them. You can’t “violate” something that was never legally imposed in the first place.
And that sovereignty applies both ways i.e. the US has the right to trade (or not to trade) with whomever they wish. So as long as they restrict themselves to applying the sanctions to their products and their companies then that is it as far as the sovereignty arguments goes.
As I see it violating the sanctions only cover trade diversion with the target of eroding the effect of sanctions, if the US has told their companies they may no longer export e.g. gyros to Russia then they have every right to penalize a US company if suddenly they are exporting gyros to Russia via Turkey.
We very much agree on this, so I should likely have used the word brake the sanctions or subvert them – my point was however that I’m not aware of any nation undermining the sanctions – but now we may have the Turks at least contemplating doing so.
English not being my first language you should not read too much into the use of the word violate as opposed to undermine – it does not reflect a special take on the legality of the sanctions.
“And that sovereignty applies both ways i.e. the US has the right to trade (or not to trade) with whomever they wish. So as long as they restrict themselves to applying the sanctions to their products and their companies then that is it as far as the sovereignty arguments goes.”
Yes, but as the article states, when the US decides not to trade with country B not because it has committed some alleged infraction, but merely has traded with country A, which supposedly has committed some infraction, then there is an extra territorial dimension to the sanction. You can always slant things by focusing only on the the US doing what it wants with whomever it wishes, but the secondary sanction is a clear attempt to “legislate” for the country involved. To govern its behavior not in terms of adhering to some kind of norm, but to refrain from behavior (ie trade) that is not problematic in its own right. It is more than merely a code of conduct for US citizens and corporate persons, but one for the entire world. Well, if the USA is writing a code for the other nations of the world, then their sovereignty is pretty clearly thereby limited.
The scholarly article also states that there are in fact international agreements to the contrary, as well as concepts like international law with respect to jurisdiction. And that, again, “As secondary sanctions limit third states’ sovereignty to freely conduct their external economic relations with other states, they raise deep legitimacy questions.” The scholarly article (written by two professors of international law, by the way) takes it as almost axiomatic that the secondary sanctions do indeed (and contrary to your confident assertions in your first post on the subject) restrict the sovereignty of the sanctioned nation. The only questions are whether a particular secondary sanction is illegal and how to enforce that illegality if it is.
My semantic argument was only that using the word “violate” implies the legality of the underlying rule. That the rule was promulgated with legitimate authority, not merely power. If that was not your intent, then, as you say, we are probably in agreement on that point.
Is there though if the sanctions are that the US choses to its sovereign option not to trade with B – this may be against WTO rules, but it certainly is not say that it is not respecting country B’s sovereignty as it is merely exercising the US’s own sovereignty to not trade with country B.
No it is simply cutting the incentives for US firms to use country B operators/intermediaries to circumvent US sanctions, or for country B agents to try to exploit the losses imposed o US companies by buying these US products and sell them on to country A. It remains a set of sanctions that apply to US producers and their product lines. If the US was going to stop trading with Turkey based on Turkey selling domestic Turkish products containing no US technology then you might have a point.
But even then it is hard to argue that the US exercising its sovereign right to decide with whom it wants to trade can be disrespecting the sovereignty of country B – it is not as if the US is saying that it will declare war on country B.
The article quite rightly is titled: “Secondary Sanctions: A Weapon out of Control? The International Legality of, and European Responses to, US Secondary Sanctions” and centers upon the questions about the US sanctions imposed upon Iran by Trump, which did not enjoy political support in EU – the conclusion is that:
Or in other words it is not even likely that such secondary sanctions violate the WTO obligations of the US.
They may argue so, but then they have to justify why it is OK for Turkey to restrict the sovereignty of the US – as this would mean that the US is no longer free to chose whit which countries it wants to trade – so no argued from a sovereignty standpoint this is not at all clear.
I think I got the point, I probably should have used the word undermine not violate. While I was very much against the sanctions on Iran, I acknowledge that as sanctions are often the last alternative to war, they are in general preferable to their alternative – and also it is the sovereign right of any nation to decide with whom they want to trade, but remember that choices have consequences so other nations may take equal sovereign choices not to trade with you if you exercise your sovereign rights.
Exercising your sovereign rights may violate e.g. your country’s WTO obligations, but then a country has the sovereign right to do so – and face the consequences – or to put in other words the US deciding to stop trade with country B if it decides to trade with country A is not disrespecting country B’s sovereignty – it may be a violation of Turkeys WTO rights – but your scholarly article indicates that this is not the case.
You are conflating, probably intentionally, the question of the legality of the sanctions, which the scholars minutely examine in various cases under the WTO and with respect to other treaties and international law generally, with the simple fact, which again, the scholars treat as axiomatic, that, of course, secondary sanctions limit and restrict the sovereignty of the country they are enforced against. So much verbiage, so much BS, and so much derailing and deflecting, to evade what both common sense AND expert opinion make plain.
Really, you need to cut back on the verbosity, the repetition, and the pomposity. You are simply wrong. and endless “debate” won’t change that. Now, I know you love to have the last word, and I’m sure you will take it. But, rest assured, neither I nor anyone else will bother reading your third iteration of your patently erroneous opinion nor your lenghty justification thereof. Bye, bye.
I did not I quite clearly stated that the legality was in doubt and I addressed the other point but I’ll pin it out for you more clearly:
The sovereignty of country B is not restricted, only sovereign choices (here to trade with country A, leads to the US taking its sovereign choice not to trade with country B.
If the US was not allowed, to not trade with country B, then that would restrict sovereignty of the US – that is so obvious that the fact that this forces country B to chose between trade with Country A or the US is no where as much a sovereignty issue.
Defaulting to insults so early?
Just answer the question already raised – how can the US taking a sovereign decision regarding with whom it wants to trade which does not prevent country B from making its own independent decision be a ‘violation’ of country B’s sovereignty?
It does not restrict country B’s sovereignty as it is still able to decide, it only changes the parameters that decision is based upon.
If we turned it around to your model then that country B decides to trade with country A limits the sovereignty of the US as it would then no longer be able to decide with what countries it wants to trade.
Sorry for the many words, but you appear not to have seen the core question, or is it that you are just not willing to answer that question as it sinks your whole argument?
e.g. Macedonia..!!!!!
Does anyone remember the coup attempt in Turkey? Erdogan does and he’s sick and tired of our BS. After that we flooded his nation with refugees, whom we displaced to make way for our Kurds, another thorn in his side. On top of that the West has made several moves, including some very underhanded banking ones, that have crashed their dollar.
All of this was done to get rid of Erdogan, who frankly speaking is an all around PITA for America. He’s a snake who plays his own game and thinks he’s the shot caller. And speaking of shots, Erdogan got his in by exposing the Saudi’s during the Khashoggi assassination.
Erdogan is as corrupt as they come, the US wants him gone and so does England. And He knows they want him gone, so why not get closer to Russia? It’s like the rest of the US’s moves lately, everything backfires because they don’t know how to do anything but threaten people. Sides are being drawn in our new Bi-Polar world and we keep pushing people away from our Pole. They will end up attracted to other alliances, it’s bound to happen.
The current geopolitical battle-lines are somewhat fluid, but in any regard, this is just another gaping wound in the US’s Uni-Polar hegemonic world.
I can’t think of a better way to get Turkey to join BRICS than to threaten secondary sanctions.
Urdogan has only to threaten the US with the closure of it`s military bases in Turkey and they will soon come to heel ,
Increasingly fewer countries are afraid of Washington sanctions. All Washington can do against Turkey is throw a hissy fit, … and try another (ha,ha) coup.
Nice euphemism, that “Western Powers.” Too bad it’s suchard an anomymous (weasel?) word. Leaves us in the dark about who really thinks what about this attempt to put U.S. nukes on Russian Ukrone border in what is shaping up to be a very dangerous game of proxy war and hegemony. Until the final card is played we are on the precipice of our own destruction. Someone should corner Bill Clinton and ask him how, when & what he has to say about his wife”s roll in this dangerous, potentially apocalyptic confrontation. No playing stupid or ignorant allowed…!!!!!
Is this an attempt to pressure Turkey’s parliament to vote to approve Sweden and Finland membership in NATO quickly?!!
We need Turkey a lot more than they need us…
Allah forbid any country doing anything for its own good and not towing the line with the other Wash. lackeys around the world. Shame on those Turkish infidels! I hope this is the beginning of a NATO breakup.
“Do as we say not as we do”. The so called western governments can not tolerate independent leaders. The western governments have causing economic hardships for Turkie for so many years. Russia was ready to help.
I think the US is getting a little too big for its britches… Not to be over-reactionary but it looks like countries are picking sides and I cannot shake the feeling that something larger is brewing…
Let’s hope the threat of “Something Bigger” fades away along with the architect’s of this scheme to put NATO nukes on the Russia/Ukraine border.
“Something larger” is an understatement I’m afraid, Donna.
I almost wish that someone would just make that first move and get it over with.
In the meantime, I’m going to run up my credit card and enjoy life while it’s still an option!
Oh. My. GOD. A sovereign nation is not adhering to Amerikkkan dictates on whom it can have a relationship with. The very nerve of them!—-maybe we could nuke them into submission.
More wittering from the Western Mainly White .
Minority World that the uppity Non Western Mainly Nonwhite Majority World arent vassals of the Washington Empire like they are.
So, at the same time we are bribing Turkey to allow NATO expansion, we are also going to threaten them for “talking to Moscow”. Erdogan must be laughing his head off.