Turkey busts Iranian weapons transfer to Syria / Hezbullah

[Sirotnikov]

Turkey seizes weapons in Syria-bound container from Iran

The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

ANKARA, Turkey: Turkish authorities seized weapons hidden among construction materials on a Syria-bound train from Iran after Kurdish guerrillas bombed and derailed the train, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

The cargo was discovered when authorities checked containers on the train, which was attacked by separatist Kurdish guerrillas on May 25 near the town of Genc in southeastern Bingol province, Prosecutor Ismail Sari told reporters Wednesday.

The bomb attack derailed seven of the train's cars, Sari said. Authorities were investigating the incident, and would also check cargo on the rest of the train, he said.

The Iranian Embassy issued a statement Wednesday denying that the weapons belonged to Iran, and said the allegations were being made "by circles" aiming to disrupt Turkey's close relations with Iran.

Earlier Wednesday, a government official said the cargo included machine guns and pistols. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The private Dogan news agency said the cargo included a rocket launch pad and 300 rockets, as well as other weapons and ammunition.

Turkish authorities suspect Iran is using Turkey as a transit point to send arms to Lebanon's Hezbollah movement via Syria.

On Tuesday evening, Turkish authorities forced a Syrian plane flying from Iran to land in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir and searched it for weapons. No arms were found.

Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, borders both Iran and Syria. It has good relations with Israel and its Arab neighbors and has contributed troops to the U.N.-led peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

[VetLegion]

How warm are Turkish-Syrian relations anyway? Do they have any border issues? Unresolved questions?

[Dinner]

It's pretty clear that the Iranian government is the primary arms supplier to most of the regions Islamist movements.

[LordShiva]

How did Iran manage to sneak a train into Turkey?

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Oerdin
It's pretty clear that the Iranian government is the primary arms supplier to most of the regions Islamist movements.

AFAIK the Saudis are supplied mostly by USA

[Dinner]

Originally posted by LordShiva
How did Iran manage to sneak a train into Turkey?

You don't. You hide weapons on a commercial train just like the OP says.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by VetLegion
AFAIK the Saudis are supplied mostly by USA

Well played.

[Dr Strangelove]

I'll bet the Kurdish rebels are just kicking themselves over this. If they had know there were weapons on the train they would have stuck around to loot it.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by VetLegion
How warm are Turkish-Syrian relations anyway? Do they have any border issues? Unresolved questions?

There was a question of Hatay/Antakya region until recently, which teh evil French gave to Turkey out from Syria to appease it before ww2. Yet, a couple of years ago syrian president kind of acknowledged this boarder finally, though no official treaty was signed. De facto the boarder was always accepted. Yet, the maps continue to show the region as syrian, and one of the ruling parties has even recently covered Damascus in posters showing half of Turkey as part of Greater Syria.
There used to be troubles concerning Euphratus' waters, but I guess it's over now.
Turkey has some links with Israel, but more importantly, the kurdish matter is what unites both; the area around Qamishli (vis a vis Nusaybin) is largely, if not predominantly kurdish. Local Assyrians claim Kurds are recent migrants to it, but anyway, it's the region where Syria has oil, so the fight against kurdish separatism is important. Again, large part if not a majority of political prisoners in Syria are Kurds.
And when were were in state-sponsored school, the first text was about how good the syrian-turkish relations are, and I think the choice of the texts there was not coincidential.

[Ancyrean]

Check this out, here's a list of items recovered from the train, from the Turkish daily Hurriyet:

- 297 rocket launchers (122 mm calibre, 3 m in length each)
- 258 crates of 81 mm mortar rounds (1032 rounds in total)
- 135 crates labelled as "Detonator Moke Mine" (sic)
- 762 Kannas sniper rifles, in 64 crates
- 54 Bixi heavy machine guns (heavy machine gun version of the AK-47)
- 120 crates of 120 mm mortar rounds
- 775 crates of "military ordnance" (unspecified in the text)
- 161 crates of roof coating material
- 51 bales of roof isolation material

Wow. Enough stuff for something pretty nasty in the wrong hands.

Also, what's with the roof material?

The speculation in the Turkish press are that these weapons and material are most likely destined for either Hamas, or the insurgents in Iraq or both (to be distributed as approppriate by the Syrians). Not unlikely at all, IMO.

There's also another speculation that it's no coincidence that PKK attacked this train. This goes along the following lines:

1. The PKK has an offshoot operating in Iran, an entity called "Pejak" which has been attacking and killing Iranian forces in Kurdish areas of Iran (this much is true, not speculation).

2. Iranian forces started to retaliate on the Pejak, killing some of their numbers (also true).

3. In response, and in a widening of the front against Iranian interests, PKK decides to disrupt the Iranian weapons transfers to Iranian proxies in the region.

4. One of the reasons that the US is preventing Turkey from bulldozing the PKK bases in Iraq is that they realised the utility of the PKK for the destabilisation of Iran. This might be the result of direct contact with and encouragement of the PKK by the US, or it might be that the PKK-Iran troubles happened through their own dynamics and the US decided to see it hurt Iran without interruption.

Such is the despicable state of the image of the US in what was once a sympathetic public.

(It also didn't help on that score that two US planes violated the Turkish airspace just a few days ago).

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by VetLegion
How warm are Turkish-Syrian relations anyway? Do they have any border issues? Unresolved questions?

Originally posted by Heresson
There was a question of Hatay/Antakya region until recently, which teh evil French gave to Turkey out from Syria to appease it before ww2. Yet, a couple of years ago syrian president kind of acknowledged this boarder finally, though no official treaty was signed. De facto the boarder was always accepted. Yet, the maps continue to show the region as syrian, and one of the ruling parties has even recently covered Damascus in posters showing half of Turkey as part of Greater Syria.
There used to be troubles concerning Euphratus' waters, but I guess it's over now.
Turkey has some links with Israel, but more importantly, the kurdish matter is what unites both; the area around Qamishli (vis a vis Nusaybin) is largely, if not predominantly kurdish. Local Assyrians claim Kurds are recent migrants to it, but anyway, it's the region where Syria has oil, so the fight against kurdish separatism is important. Again, large part if not a majority of political prisoners in Syria are Kurds.
And when were were in state-sponsored school, the first text was about how good the syrian-turkish relations are, and I think the choice of the texts there was not coincidential.

Summarises it nicely

Syria much belatedly realises that it is in no position to stir up trouble for a neighbour like Turkey, particularly since there's no more uncle Boris around to provide free arms and credits, when their economy is the envy of few and their friends in the world are even fewer.

In the current positive state of affairs, Turkey is actually one of the few moderating influences on Syria, encouraging it to withdraw from Lebanon, to talk to Israelis on the Golan issue and to stop support for the insurgency in Iraq, etc. Regrettably, Syria's general diplomatic isolation ultimately keeps it entangled in the embrace of Iran.

[C0ckney]

good work by the PKK

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by C0ckney
good work by the PKK

Still, it was no act of charity. Conspiracy theories aside, they probably didn't know about the contents of the train at all. They didn't make any attempt to carry anything off, for example (Sniper rifles and explosives would be a particular bonanza for them).

For the past 2 weeks, there's an increased pace of activity by the PKK; they ambushed several army patrols in that time. This of course drew a big military operation on them. Just yesterday 10 PKK terrorists were killed by the army, today 4 more. They have occasionally derailed trains before and this one is also more likely to be planned in connection with the recent increase in their activity.

[Arrian]

So, basically this was **** luck? Sweet.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
So, basically this was **** luck? Sweet.

-Arrian

Either that, or most trains from Iran to Syria via Turkey are filled with such weapons. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Or, they deliberately didnt loot the train, to protect "intelligence gathering means and sources".