The Swedish government was complicit in the burning of the Quran at a protest in Stockholm last weekend, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu reportedly said Thursday.
Increased tensions between the two countries come at a time when Sweden is relying on Turkey to support its bid for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military alliance, of which Turkey is a member, in the light of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Çavuşoğlu blamed the Swedish government after police in the capital Stockholm authorized the demonstration by right-wing politician Rasmus Paludan, and held it responsible for the burning of the Islamic holy book, according to state news agency Anadolu.
Turkish-Swedish relations suffered a major blow last week after the rally outside the city’s Turkish Embassy last Saturday at which anti-immigration politician Paludan set a copy of the Quran alight.
The incident sparked anger in the Turkish capital, Ankara, where protesters took to the streets and burned the Swedish flag outside the Swedish embassy in response.
Speaking Thursday, Çavuşoğlu said the Swedish government had “taken part in this crime by allowing this vile act” to go ahead, according to Anadolu.
The foreign minister described the incident as a “racist attack” that had nothing to do with freedom of thought, the agency said.
Çavuşoğlu advised Sweden to “demine” its path to NATO membership or risk ruining its chance by “stepping on those mines,” Anadolu reported.
Earlier this week, Ankara called for a February meeting between Turkey, Sweden and Finland to be postponed, according to Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber, which cited unnamed diplomatic sources.
Finland is also applying to join NATO, along with its Nordic neighbor, after Moscow’s assault on Ukraine sparked renewed security concern across the region.
Anadolu reported Thursday that the meeting around Sweden and Finland’s NATO applications was postponed in light of the current “unhealthy political environment.”
The three countries have met in the past under the “trilateral memorandum” to discuss Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership requests.
Ankara also canceled Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson’s planned trip to Turkey in the wake of the incident.
Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but all 30 member states, including Turkey, must approve their bids.
Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
Turkey denounced Sweden after protests in front of its embassy in Stockholm including the burning of a Quran by far-right supporters and a separate demonstration by Kurdish activists.
Ankara said on Saturday it was cancelling a visit by Sweden’s defence minister aimed at overcoming Turkey’s objections to its NATO membership. Sweden needs Turkey’s backing to gain entry to the military alliance as fears in Europe grow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Quran burning was carried out by Rasmus Paludan, leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line. In April last year, Paludan’s announcement of a Quran burning “tour” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan sparked riots across Sweden.
Surrounded by police, Paludan set fire to the holy book with a lighter following a long diatribe of almost an hour, in which he attacked Islam and immigration in Sweden. About 100 people gathered nearby for a peaceful counterdemonstration.
“If you don’t think there should be freedom of expression, you have to live somewhere else,” he said.
The Turkish foreign ministry responded immediately in a statement.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book… Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of freedom of expression is completely unacceptable,” the ministry said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu vented fury at Swedish authorities’ failure to ban the protest. “It’s a racist action, it’s not about freedom of expression,” he said.
Several Arab countries – including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait – also denounced the Quran-burning.
“Saudi Arabia calls for spreading the values of dialogue, tolerance, and coexistence, and rejects hatred and extremism,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement.
A small group gathered outside the Swedish embassy in Ankara to protest the Quran-burning. A protest was also scheduled to take place in Istanbul on Saturday evening.
‘Clear crime of hatred’
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom called the Islamophobic provocations “appalling”.
“Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of expression, but it does not imply that the Swedish Government, or myself, support the opinions expressed,” Billstrom said on Twitter.
A separate protest took place in the city supporting Kurds and against Sweden’s bid to join NATO. A group of pro-Turkish demonstrators also held a rally outside the embassy. All three events had police permits.
Demonstrators waved flags of various Kurdish groups, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey. The PKK is considered a terrorist group in Turkey, the European Union, and the United States, but its symbols are not banned in Sweden.
Turkey earlier was angered by Sweden’s green light for the protest in front of its embassy amid ongoing tensions following Ankara’s objections to Sweden’s bid to join the NATO military alliance.
Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar denounced Sweden’s government for failing to take measures against “disgusting” anti-Turkish protests on its soil. Akar said the scheduled January 27 visit by his Swedish counterpart Pål Jonson no longer held “any importance or point”.
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin condemned the demonstration as a “clear crime of hatred”.
“Allowing this action despite all our warnings is encouraging hate crimes and Islamophobia,” he tweeted. “The attack on sacred values is not freedom but modern barbarism.”
Billström told TT news agency on Friday that Sweden respects freedom of speech.
‘Extremists and loonies’
Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden, told Al Jazeera there was still progress being made on the issue of Turkey’s approval for Sweden’s ascension into NATO despite the tensions.
“There are extremists and loonies running around trying to sabotage the whole process. They should not be given [importance] if the authorities in Ankara are truly interested in coming to an agreement,” Bildt said.
Turkey summoned the Swedish ambassador on Friday to condemn the protests, saying rallies by pro-Kurdish groups linked to the PKK would be a violation of the joint memorandum signed between Turkey, Sweden and Finland that prevented a Turkish veto for the Nordic countries’ NATO accession in June.
Sweden and neighbouring Finland dropped decades of military non-alignment last year when they applied to join the Western defence alliance in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey has so far refused to approve their bids, which need sign-off by all member states, and tied its favourable vote to Swedish steps to extradite people it accuses of terrorism or of having played a part in the 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey argues that Sweden is not doing enough to crack down on Kurdish groups that Ankara views as “terrorists”.
Sweden’s ambassador to Turkey was summoned last week after a video posted by a Kurdish group in Stockholm that depicted an effigy of Erdogan swinging by his legs from a rope.
STOCKHOLM, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Protests in Stockholm on Saturday against Turkey and Sweden’s bid to join NATO, including the burning of a copy of the Koran, sharply heightened tensions with Turkey at a time when the Nordic country needs Ankara’s backing to gain entry to the military alliance.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book … Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of freedom of expression is completely unacceptable,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
Its statement was issued after an anti-immigrant politician from the far-right fringe burned a copy of the Koran near the Turkish Embassy. The Turkish ministry urged Sweden to take necessary actions against the perpetrators and invited all countries to take concrete steps against Islamophobia.
A separate protest took place in the city supporting Kurds and against Sweden’s bid to join NATO. A group of pro-Turkish demonstrators also held a rally outside the embassy. All three events had police permits.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said that Islamophobic provocations were appalling.
“Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of expression, but it does not imply that the Swedish Government, or myself, support the opinions expressed,” Billstrom said on Twitter.
The Koran-burning was carried out by Rasmus Paludan, leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line. Paludan, who also has Swedish citizenship, has held a number of demonstrations in the past where he has burned the Koran.
Paludan could not immediately be reached by email for a comment. In the permit he obtained from police, it says his protest was held against Islam and what it called Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to influence freedom of expression in Sweden.
Several Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait denounced the Koran-burning. “Saudi Arabia calls for spreading the values of dialogue, tolerance, and coexistence, and rejects hatred and extremism,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but all 30 member states must approve their bids. Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
At the demonstration to protest Sweden’s NATO bid and to show support for Kurds, speakers stood in front of a large red banner reading “We are all PKK”, referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party that is outlawed in Turkey, Sweden, and the United States among other countries, and addressed several hundred pro-Kurdish and left-wing supporters.
“We will continue our opposition to the Swedish NATO application,” Thomas Pettersson, spokesperson for Alliance Against NATO and one of organizers of the demonstration, told Reuters.
Police said the situation was calm at all three demonstrations.
DEFENCE MINISTER’S VISIT CANCELLED
Earlier on Saturday, Turkey said that due to lack of measures to restrict protests, it had cancelled a planned visit to Ankara by the Swedish defence minister.
“At this point, the visit of Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson to Turkey on January 27 has become meaningless. So we cancelled the visit,” Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.
Jonson said separately that he and Akar had met on Friday during a gathering of Western allies in Germany and had decided to postpone the planned meeting.
Akar said he had discussed with Erdogan the lack of measures to restrict protests in Sweden against Turkey and had conveyed Ankara’s reaction to Jonson on the sidelines of a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group.
“It is unacceptable not to make a move or react to these (protests). The necessary things needed to be done, measures should have been taken,” Akar said, according to a statement by Turkish Defence Ministry.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry had already summoned Sweden’s ambassador on Friday over the planned protests.
Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to their membership of NATO. Sweden says it has fulfilled its part of the memorandum but Turkey is demanding more, including extradition of 130 people it deems to be terrorists.
(This story has been corrected to remove the erroneous reference to Morocco in the ninth paragraph)
Reporting by Omer Berberoglu in Istanbul and Niklas Pollard and Simon Johnson in Stockholm
Additional reporting by Moaz Abd-Alaziz in Cairo
Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun and Niklas Pollard
Editing by Toby Chopra and Frances Kerry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Unilever CEO Alan Jope photographed at the World Economic Forum in May 2022.
Hollie Adams | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The CEO of consumer goods giant Unilever said Tuesday that prices would likely continue to rise in the near term, adding that his firm had a playbook for high inflation thanks to its business dealings in markets like Argentina and Turkey.
Speaking to CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Alan Jope talked about how his firm was managing its operations in the current climate.
“For the last 18 months we’ve seen extraordinary input cost pressure … it runs across petrochemical derived products, agricultural derived products, energy, transport, logistics,” he said.
“It’s been feeding through for quite some time now and we’ve been accelerating the rate of price increases that we’ve had to put into the market,” he added.
“So far, the consumer response in terms of volume softness has been very muted, the consumer has been very resilient,” Jope said.
“We do see the prospect of higher volume elasticity as winter energy costs hit, as households’ savings levels come down and that buffer goes away and as prices continue to rise,” he said.
Last October, Unilever published its third-quarter results for 2022, with the firm reporting price growth of 12.5%.
Jope was asked if he foresaw any moderation when it came to inflationary pressures. “It’s very hard to predict the future of commodity markets,” he replied.
“Even if you press the oil major CEOs, they’ll be a little cagey on giving an outlook on energy prices.”
Unilever’s view, he said, was that “we know for sure there’s more inflationary pressure coming through in our input costs.”
“We might be, at the moment, around peak inflation, but probably not peak prices,” he went on to state.
“There’s further pricing to come through, but the rate of price increases is probably peaking around now.”
Stock picks and investing trends from CNBC Pro:
Unilever has a global footprint and owns brands including Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum and Wall’s.
During his interview with CNBC, Jope touched upon the international dimension of his business and how the experience of operating in a range of markets was steering it through the current climate.
“Nobody running a business at the moment has really lived through global inflation, it’s a long time since we’ve had global inflation,” he said.
“But we’re used to high levels of inflation from doing business in places like Argentina, or Turkey, or parts of Southeast Asia,” he added.
“So we do have a playbook, and the playbook is that it’s important to protect the shape of the P&L by landing price.”
“And so it’s not that we’ve taken more price, we just started acting earlier than many of our peers, and the guidance that we’ve been getting from our investors is they support that and feel that that’s an appropriate action.”
This, Jope explained, was “something we have learned from being in these high inflationary markets, though … much of that inflation is currency weakness, historically.”
“But now those markets are having to deal with the combination of commodity pressure and currency weakness. So our instinct is to act quickly when costs start coming through.”
ANKARA, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Sweden and Finland must deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey before the Turkish parliament will approve their bids to join NATO, President Tayyip Erdogan said.
The two Nordic states applied last year to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but their bids must be approved by all 30 NATO member states. Turkey and Hungary have yet to endorse the applications.
Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
“We said look, so if you don’t hand over your terrorists to us, we can’t pass it (approval of the NATO application) through the parliament anyway,” Erdogan said in comments late on Sunday, referring to a joint press conference he held with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last November.
“For this to pass the parliament, first of all you have to hand more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us,” Erdogan said.
Finnish politicians interpreted Erdogan’s demand as an angry response to an incident in Stockholm last week in which an effigy of the Turkish leader was strung up during what appeared to be a small protest.
“This must have been a reaction, I believe, to the events of the past days,” Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto told public broadcaster YLE.
Haavisto said he was not aware of any new official demands from Turkey.
In response to the incident in Stockholm, Turkey cancelled a planned visit to Ankara of the Swedish speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlen, who instead came to Helsinki on Monday.
“We stress that in Finland and in Sweden we have freedom of expression. We cannot control it,” the speaker of the Finnish parliament, Matti Vanhanen, told reporters at a joint news conference with Norlen.
Separately on Monday Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said that his country was in a “good position” to secure Turkey’s ratification of its NATO bid.
Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Saturday that time was running out for Turkey’s parliament to ratify the bids before presidential and parliamentary elections expected in May.
Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Gareth Jones
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The Biden administration is preparing to seek congressional approval for a $20 billion sale of new F-16 jet fighters to Turkey along with a separate sale of next-generation F-35 warplanes to Greece, in what would be among the largest foreign weapons sales in recent years, according to U.S. officials.
Administration officials intend the prospect of the sale to prod Turkey to sign off on Finland and Sweden’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Ankara has blocked over objections to their ties to Kurdish separatist groups. Congress’s approval of the sale is contingent on Turkey’s acquiescence, administration officials said. The two countries ended decades of neutrality when they decided to join NATO last year in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The sale to Turkey, which the administration has been considering for more than a year, is larger than expected. It includes 40 new aircraft and kits to overhaul 79 of Turkey’s existing F-16 fleet, according to officials familiar with the proposals.
Congressional notification of the deal will roughly coincide with a visit to Washington next week by Turkey’s Foreign Minister
Mevlut Cavusoglu.
The sale to Turkey also includes more than 900 air-to-air missiles and 800 bombs, one of the officials said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has faced U.S. pressure to approve NATO expansion.
Photo:
adem altan/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The separate sale to Greece, which was requested by the Greek government in June 2022, includes at least 30 new F-35s. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the U.S.’s most advanced jet fighter. While officials described the timing of the notifications for both Turkey and Greece as coincidental, it could quell protests from Athens over the F-16 sale if its request is also granted. Greece and Turkey are historic regional rivals and a sale to Turkey alone would likely draw swift condemnation from Athens.
The potential sale of the aircraft could have far-reaching implications for Washington’s efforts to shore up ties with a pair of NATO allies amid the Western response to Russia’s assault on Ukraine.
A State Department spokesman declined to comment on potential arms transfers as a matter of policy until and unless they are formally notified to Congress. Congress has never successfully blocked a foreign arms sale requested by the White House.
The proposed deal with Turkey comes at a moment of tension in U.S.-Turkish relations, with Washington also attempting to convince President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan
to do more to enforce sanctions on Russia and to approve the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO.
The proposal also sets up a possible showdown with some congressional leaders who have vowed to oppose weapons sales to Turkey. Sen.
Bob Menendez,
a Democrat from New Jersey who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said he wouldn’t approve any F-16 sale to Turkey, citing human-rights concerns.
In recent months, Mr. Erdogan has also threatened to launch a new military incursion against Kurdish militants in Syria. Last month a Turkish court also convicted the mayor of Istanbul, a popular opponent of Mr. Erdogan, of insulting public officials in what human rights groups said was part of a crackdown on the Turkish opposition. The Turkish government says its courts are independent.
Under U.S. arms-export laws, Congress will have 30 days to review the deal. If Congress wants to block the deal it must pass a joint resolution of disapproval. Congress can also pass legislation to block or modify a sale at any time until the delivery.
The Biden administration is looking to sell at least 30 new F-35 jet fighters to Greece.
Photo:
robert atanasovski/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
U.S. officials say they are encouraging Mr. Erdogan to drop his opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. One official characterized the F-16s as the “carrot on a stick” to get Turkey to agree.
This, officials said, could ease opposition to the sale among some members of Congress. Officials within the State Department have argued for months that the expansion was imperative to NATO’s collective security. However, officials expect that while the Greece package could sail through Congress, the F-16s may be delayed over some members’ reluctance to embolden Ankara with the additional firepower.
Mr. Erdogan first threatened to veto the two countries’ entrance over their ties to Kurdish militant groups in Iraq and Syria. Turkey has fought a slow-burning war with Kurdish armed groups for decades in a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead.
NATO leaders say that Finland and Sweden have addressed Turkey’s concerns, upholding an agreement signed last year that called for both countries to evaluate Turkish extradition requests and drop restrictions on arms sales to Ankara.
Turkish officials say that Sweden hasn’t done enough to uphold its obligations to Turkey, citing what they say is continuing activity by the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Sweden. The Turkish government this week summoned Sweden’s ambassador over a demonstration in Stockholm in which protesters hung a puppet of Mr. Erdogan by its feet. The Turkish president’s hard line against Sweden has broad support within Turkey, including among opposition parties, who have long opposed what they see as a permissive approach to Kurdish militant groups in Europe.
The timing of a vote on NATO expansion in the Turkish parliament will also depend on Turkey’s national election this year, in which Mr. Erdogan faces a close race amid public discontent over the country’s struggling economy.
The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Biden administration remains cautiously optimistic that Turkey will eventually come around on Finland and Sweden. U.S. officials said last year that there would be no quid pro quo for Turkey’s approval of the NATO expansion, and said that the timing of the F-16 sale was dependent on the administration’s own internal process to complete the deal.
The proposed sales also come amid heightened tensions between Turkey and Greece, two longtime adversaries who have traded threats over the past year in the eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey was originally a participant in the U.S.’s cutting-edge F-35 program but was expelled after Mr. Erdogan approved the purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense system. The U.S. government said the Russian weapons system could potentially hack the F-35.
Biden administration officials have argued that selling F-16s to Turkey could help restore ties with the country, which maintains the second-largest army in NATO.
Under Mr. Erdogan, Turkey has played an important role in the Ukraine crisis, facilitating negotiations over prisoner exchanges and helping to broker an agreement that allowed Ukraine to resume its exports of grain through Black Sea ports. Mr. Erdogan’s close relationship with Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin
has also raised concerns in Washington, with scrutiny of inflows of Russian money to Turkey, including oligarch assets.
Finland and Sweden have formally applied to join NATO, but Turkey has threatened to block them from joining. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday explains why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees the expansion as a threat to Turkey’s national security. (Video first published in May 2022). Photo composite: Sebastian Vega
—William Mauldin contributed to this article.
Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com and Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com
STOCKHOLM, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Sweden is confident that Turkey will approve its application to join the NATO military alliance, but cannot fulfil all the conditions Ankara has set for its support, Sweden’s prime minister said on Sunday.
“Turkey both confirms that we have done what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a defence think-tank conference in Sweden.
Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to their membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
They applied in May to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Turkey objected and accused the countries of harbouring militants, including from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party
One sticking point has been extraditions of people Turkey regards as terrorists. Ankara expressed disappointment with a decision late last year from Sweden’s top court to stop a request to extradite a journalist with alleged links to Islamic scholar Fetullah Gulen, blamed by Turkey for an attempted coup.
Reporting by Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson; editing by Barbara Lewis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Cargo ships and vessels transit the Bosphorus Strait, a body of water connecting the Black Sea to the Marmara and Mediterranean Seas through Istanbul, Turkey. Above, the Russia-flagged vessel Volga River Taganrog oil tanker passes south through the Bosphorus Straits in October 2022.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Tankers full of Kazakh oil are tangled in delays traveling through the Bosphorus Strait as a result of Turkey’s new proof of insurance measures for vessels carrying Russian oil now subject to EU sanctions and a G7 nation price cap.
Kazakh oil goes by pipeline through Russia and is loaded onto tankers at the port of Novorossiysk. Officials can track the origin of the oil on the bill of lading.
“It appears that all but one of the roughly twenty loaded crude tankers waiting to cross the straits are carrying Kazakh-origin oil,” a price cap official told CNBC. “These cargoes would not be subject to the price cap under any scenario, and there should be no change in the status of their insurance from Kazakh shipments in previous weeks or months,” said the official, who was granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the geopolitical issues.
Based on the number of vessels, over 20 million barrels of oil equaling $1.2 billion is stuck.
New Turkish insurance rules on oil tankers carrying Russian crude have slowed down the movement of tankers off the coast of Turkey and between Russia’s Black Sea ports and the Mediterranean since earlier this week when the price cap and sanctions first went into effect.
If delays mount, refiners will seek alternative supplies from other countries or they will reduce operating capacity because they don’t have enough oil, which impacts the supply of gasoline and diesel, said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.
“If this continues for another week we will begin to see an impact on the oil market,” Lipow said.
Buyers of Kazah oil include Asia, Europe, and some quantities on the U.S. East Coast.
Tanker wait times increasing
VesselsValue tells CNBC that the average wait for tankers at the Bosphorus has increased compared to last week by roughly 47%, when there were 14 vessels with an average wait duration of 64 hours and a combined tonnage capacity of 1.46 million tons.
Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that wait times are typical. “The waiting time in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles is six days for now. For the winter season, this is a normal wait; last year, the wait in the straits in December was about 14 days.”
MarineTraffic is monitoring the number of tankers waiting through the Bosphorus. The company, which uses AIS tracking of vessels, says the number of tankers waiting is now up to 40 and has more than doubled in recent days.
“We can see a growing list of crude and chemical tankers waiting to cross the Bosphorous from either side, with a variety of reported AIS destinations, including mainly Turkey and Russia, but also Ukraine, Georgia, Italy,” said Nikos Pothitakis, spokesperson for MarineTraffic. “The vessels in question are mainly flagged by the Russia, Greece, Liberia and Marshall Islands registries.”
On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo spoke with Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal to discuss the implementation of the price cap on Russian seaborne oil. Adeyemo stressed the price cap regime only applies to oil of Russian origin and does not necessitate additional checks on ships passing through Turkish territorial waters, according to a statement from Treasury. Both officials said a simple compliance regime by Turkey to permit seaborne oil to transit the Turkish straits would help keep the global energy markets well-supplied.
“The price cap policy does not require ships to seek unique insurance guarantees for each individual voyage, as required under Turkey’s rule,” said the price cap official to CNBC. “These disruptions are the result of Turkey’s rule, not the price cap policy.”
A bottleneck is building across an important trading route for oil, which if left unresolved could knock global supply and boost prices at a fragile moment for energy markets.
As of Thursday, 16 oil tankers traveling south from the Black Sea were waiting to cross the Bosphorus strait into the Sea of Marmara, an increase of five from Tuesday, according to a report from Istanbul-based Tribeca Shipping Agency. A further nine tankers were waiting to cross southbound from the Sea of Marmara through the Dardanelles strait into the Mediterranean.
The snarl-up in waterways controlled by Turkey, which Turkish officials said is mostly affecting crude oil shipments destined for Europe,has caught the attention of UK and US government officials who are now in talks with Ankara to resolve the growing impasse.
The snag is linked to a Western price cap on Russian oil that came into effect on Monday. The cap is supposed to limit the Kremlin’s revenues without adding to stress on the global economy by reducing supply. But Turkey is insisting that vessels prove they have insurance that will pay out in light of the new sanctions, before allowing them to pass through the straits linking the Black Sea and Mediterranean.
Although currently causing no disruption to global oil supply and thus prices, the hold-up could become a problem if left unresolved, said Jorge Leon, senior vice president for oil market analysis at Rystad Energy. “This is a very popular route around the world for global trade and specifically for crude,” he told CNN Business.
Countries including Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan use the Turkish straits to get their oil to world oil markets.
The traffic jam in the Turkish straits arose following the imposition this weekof the price cap on Russian oil. The cap barsship owners carrying Russian oil from accessing insurance and other services from European providers unless the oil is sold for $60 a barrel or less.
In light of the cap, Turkish maritime authorities are concernedabout the risk of accidents or oil spills involving uninsured vessels,and are preventing ships from passing through Turkish waters unless they can provide additional guarantees that their transit is covered.
In anotice issued last monthby Turkey’s government ahead of the price cap,maritime director general Ünal Baylan said that given “catastrophic consequences” for the country in the event of an accident involving a crude tanker, “it is absolutely required for us to confirm in some way that their [protection and indemnity] insurance cover is still valid and comprehensive.”
The International Group of P&I Clubs, which provides protection and indemnity insurance for 90% of the goods shipped by sea, has said it cannot complywith the Turkishpolicy.
The Turkish government’s requirements “go well beyond the general information that is contained in a normal confirmation of entry letter” and would require P&I Clubs to confirm coverage even in the event of a breach of sanctions under EU, UK and US law, the UK P&I Club said in a statement.
Turkish officials say this position is “unacceptable” and on Thursday reiterated demands for letters from insurers. “The majority of the crude oil tankers waiting to cross the strait are EU ships and a majority of the petrol is destined for EU ports,” the Turkish maritime authority said in a statement.
“It is difficult to understand why EU-based insurance companies are refusing to provide this letter… for ships that belong to the EU, carrying crude oil to [the] EU when the sanctions in question have been set forth by the EU,” it added.
Western officials, clearly worried about potentialdisruption to oil supply, say they are in talks with Turkey’s government to resolve the situation.
US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal on a call that the price cap only applies to Russian oil and “does not necessitate additional checks on ships” passing through Turkish waters.
“Both officials highlighted their shared interest in keeping global energy markets well supplied by creating a simple compliance regime that would permit oil to transit the Turkish straits,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.
“The UK, US and EU are working closely with the Turkish government and the shipping and insurance industries to clarify the implementation of the Oil Price Cap and reach a resolution,” according to a statement from the UK Treasury.
“There is no reason for ships to be denied access to the Bosporus Straits for environmental or health and safety concerns,” it added.
Despite the backlog of tankers, the average waiting time to cross the Bosphorus strait is still well below where it was this time last year, according to Leon of Rystad Energy. “Given the reaction from UK and US officials, my hunch is that this is going to be resolved very soon,” he said.
-— Gül Tüysüz in Istanbul contributed to this article.
A traffic jam of oil tankers has built up in Turkish waters after western powers launched a “price cap” targeting Russian oil and as authorities in Ankara demanded insurers promise that any vessels navigating its straits were fully covered.
Under EU sanctions which came into effect on Monday, tankers loading Russian crude oil are barred from accessing western maritime insurance unless the oil is sold under the G7’s price cap of $60 a barrel. The cap was introduced to keep oil flowing while still crimping Moscow’s revenues.
Four oil industry executives said Turkey had demanded new proof of insurance in light of the price cap. A Turkish transport ministry spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment
Russia has vowed to continue exporting its oil even if it is cut off from western insurance markets. Russia has said it will not deal with any country abiding by the cap.
Around 19 crude oil tankers were waiting to cross Turkish waters on Monday, according to ship brokers, oil traders and satellite tracking services. The vessels had dropped anchor near the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the two straits linking Russia’s Black Sea ports to international markets. The first tanker arrived on November 29 and has been waiting for six days, according to a ship broker who asked not to be named.
The tankers waiting in and around Turkish waters are the first sign that the price cap could disrupt global oil flows beyond Russia’s exports.
Much of the oil on the ships off Turkey is of Kazakhstan origin, according to shipbrokers and TankerTrackers.com, which monitor global oil shipments. Kazakhstan oil arrives in Russian ports via pipeline and is not targeted by western sanctions.
Ankara has asked all crude tankers passing through the Turkish straits to provide letters from their protection and indemnity providers, known as P&I Clubs, confirming that insurance cover would remain in place to cover incidents such as oil spills and collisions.
But the International Group of P&I Clubs, which represents 13 mutual insurers providing liability cover to around 90 per cent of global shipping, said on Monday that the Turkish request went “well beyond” the general information normally required.
It was not possible for P&I providers to guarantee cover even in the case of a sanctions breach, the group said in a statement by one of its members.
Nick Shaw, the group’s chief executive, told the Financial Times it was in “ongoing constructive discussions with the relevant authorities to try and resolve the situation”.
Russia has assembled a so-called “shadow fleet” of more than 100 tankers to try and circumvent western restrictions on its oil exports, which may operate either without insurance or from providers outside the west.
One oil industry participant with knowledge of the situation said that Russian insurance companies had provided letters of confirmation to Turkish authorities in order to secure passage through Turkish waters. The shippers with insurance from western providers were the ones being held up, the person added.
Tankers carrying refined products like petrol and diesel rather than crude oil were also being let through by Turkish authorities, as EU sanctions on those fuels do not take effect until February.
