State Department: We do not expect the imposition of sanctions on Turkish companies to affect Sweden’s NATO accession path

The assessment that the sanctions imposed on five Turkish companies and to a Turkish national to avoid Russian sanctions is not going to affect Sweden’s NATO accession process, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. During the regular press briefing, the representative of the US State Department rejected the attempt of the correspondent of the TRT network to equate the action of Turkish companies with the purchase of Russian fuel from EU countries.

“They are not worried at all United States that these sanctions – because they are coming at a time when your main priority is for Ankara to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership, are you at all concerned that imposing sanctions on these entities in NATO ally Turkey could derail this process?“, was the question addressed by Reuters, according to the Athens News Agency.

“Not at all. We have a constructive, warm relationship with the Turkish government. He is an important ally of ours. The President met with President Erdogan some time ago and reiterated this fact after the meeting. We continue to work with them to communicate that NATO membership is important to Sweden and must happen as soon as possible, and we take very seriously President Erdogan’s assurances that this will happen. And we don’t see these (the two issues) as connected in any way and we don’t see that in any way these sanctions should have any impact on that membership at all,” was Mr. Miller’s response.

Turkey’s TRT asked for its part: “Regarding Turkish companies being sanctioned by the State Department, I just looked at a tweet just before the briefing in which you say, and I quote, ‘we have sanctioned…those who maintain the Russia’s ability to continue this war, enhancing its ability to remain a global energy power.” But looking at the statistics since the start of the war, the EU – your biggest partner in the war against Russia, say – has bought more than $160 billion of fossil fuels since the start of the war.

Wouldn’t you say that the West, Western companies, these European Union member states, are actually financing the war against Ukraine? Because it’s great, like bravo for these five (Turkish) companies that were selling sensors and servicing shipyards. But when you look at the real picture, would you tell the Americans that we’re doing everything we can while our biggest partners are basically paying billions and billions of dollars to Russia?”

“I would not come to that conclusion at all. I would say that we have worked hand in hand with our EU partners, with individual European countries, to impose costs on Russia through sanctions and export controls. We recognize that some European countries imported large quantities of Russian fossil fuels before this war began and could not simply stop them completely immediately without their citizens suffering from cold winters and having no access to energy at all. But we have seen two things: firstly, European countries are taking significant steps, as I said, to impose costs on Russia. And secondly, to take steps to begin weaning themselves off Russian fossil fuels, Russian oil, Russian natural gas. We have worked with them to provide them with access to additional US natural gas to fund this transition, and we believe these steps have been important and productive,” the spokesperson responded.

“But it is a fact, isn’t it, that hundreds of billions are still coming out – these payments are made to Russia, as half of Russian oil has been transported by Greek ships. All this is happening in real time,” a TRT journalist continued.

“Like I said, -we can’t ask a country that was completely dependent on Russian fossil fuels to freeze if it means its citizens won’t have access to electricity or heating during a cold winter. What we can ask countries to do, and what we have asked countries to do and have worked with them on, is to take steps to transition away from Russian fossil fuels. And I will remind you that some of these countries in Europe are members of the (summit) G7, which has imposed a price ceiling on Russian oil to ensure that Russian revenues will be significantly reduced. And in fact, we’ve seen Russian revenues drop significantly as a result of this price cap. So, while we didn’t want to take Russian oil off the market because of the impact it could have on energy prices worldwide and the impact it would have on energy prices for American consumers, we took steps to ensure that while Russian oil will continue to be available (on the market), its price and the profits they will receive from it will be significantly reduced.”