WarSclerotic

Report: $36 billion in mystery funds enter Turkey

Al-Monitor quotes insiders who speculate that the source of funds could be Iran, Syria or Qatar

In the last 12 years, since the AKP party has taken over Turkey, over $36 billion in cash from undisclosed sources has flowed into Turkey, according to the Washington-based al-Monitor publication.

According to the report, the year 2011 was a record-breaker, with $9.4 billion arriving in mystery funds.

Former Treasury undersecretary Faik Oztrak, now deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) told Al-Monitor that the current account deficit is being financed by money coming from unknown, mystery sources.

“In the first six months of this year, $8.8 billion came to Turkey from unknown sources, while $2.6 billion exited Turkey from unknown sources. This means that in the first half of the year there was a net entry of $6.4 billion from unknown sources, which actually means that in the first half of 2014, a $26 portion of each $100 of the current deficit was financed by money from mystery sources. This is extraordinary and needs explanation.”

Oztrak has submitted queries to the minister responsible for economic coordination asking where the money came from but has not received a response, according to Al-Monitor.

Oztrak speculated as to the origin of the funds: “At one point Iran was cited as the source. Now the addresses are Syria and Gulf countries. The state must investigate this seriously and should not allow speculation.”

Political scientist Mustafa Sahin, known to be close to the AKP, told Al-Monitor, “The secret of how Turkey avoided the 2008 global economic crisis is in these mystery funds. …Qatar and other Muslim countries have money in Turkey. These unrecorded funds came to Turkey because of their confidence in Erdogan and the Muslim features of the AKP and the signs of Turkey restoring its historic missions.”

This entry was posted on September 14, 2014 at 9:53 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.