A lawmaker from Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) accused the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of what he called theft, alleging that irregular oil shipments and related transactions through the Iraq-Turkey crude oil pipeline left billions of Turkish lira unaccounted for, Turkish Minute reported.
Deniz Yavuzyılmaz, the CHP’s deputy chair in charge of public oversight and anti-corruption and a lawmaker from the northern province of Zonguldak, said the transactions took place between May 21, 2014, and September 30, 2018.
Yavuzyılmaz said in a speech in parliament that his allegations were based on an international arbitration ruling.
According to Yavuzyılmaz, the government allowed crude oil to be transported through the pipeline without approval from Iraq’s federal government, instead working directly with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq.
He said the KRG paid $2.101 billion in transport fees during that period. However, Yavuzyılmaz alleged the payments were not transferred directly to Turkey or to the state pipeline operator, BOTAŞ.
Instead, he said the money was routed to a company registered on the Channel Island of Jersey called Turkish Energy Company (TEC).
Yavuzyılmaz said the Jersey-based TEC was indirectly linked to BOTAŞ through a chain of affiliated companies. He argued the layered corporate structure was designed to make it harder to track how the money was moved and where it ultimately ended up.
According to his account, the Jersey-based company transferred only $1.097 billion of the total amount to BOTAŞ. The remaining roughly $1.004 billion was not accounted for in the transfers to the state pipeline operator.
Yavuzyılmaz said the missing amount corresponds to about 43 billion Turkish lira at current exchange rates.
He also claimed that after the transactions began attracting international scrutiny, confidentiality restrictions were imposed on the Jersey company’s accounts.
He said the company was later shut down and replaced with a newly established company in Ankara with a similar name. Although the new company was registered in Turkey, it used the same abbreviation as the Jersey entity, which he argued created confusion and helped sever the link to the earlier transactions.
Arbitration ruling
The dispute is tied to a case filed by Iraq against Turkey at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris under a 1973 agreement governing the Iraq-Turkey crude oil pipeline.
The agreement grants Iraq’s central government sole authority over oil exports through the line.
In a final ruling dated February 13, 2023, the arbitration tribunal found that Turkey violated the agreement by allowing oil produced by the KRG to be loaded at the Ceyhan terminal without Baghdad’s consent, according to legal summaries published by international law firms involved in the case.
The tribunal ordered Turkey to pay about $1.471 billion in net damages. Yavuzyılmaz said that is equivalent to about 63 billion Turkish lira at current exchange rates.
Turkey has challenged the ruling in French courts, where proceedings are ongoing.
Despite the arbitration ruling, Yavuzyılmaz said no investigation has been launched in Turkey into the oil shipments or the financial transactions he described.
Instead, he said prosecutors have opened an inquiry only into him for publicly disclosing the arbitration decision and related documents.
“This is the only case so far in which prosecution has been sought, and it is against the person who revealed the documents,” Yavuzyılmaz wrote on X.
