Turkey refuses to fully resume transit of sanctioned goods to Russia
Source：lenta.ru
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Moscow
Update Time：2023/04/12
Turkey refused to fully resume the transit of sanctioned goods to Russia - now supplies are coming with a number of restrictions. For example, the mechanism stopped working for products from the USA and Canada, as well as certain categories of goods, regardless of the country of production.
On March 20, Russian companies were able to arrange transit both at the airport and at truck terminals, but only for goods produced in the EU, Georgy Vlastopulo, general director of Optimalog, said. Clearance of US shipments with "Russia" as the country of destination is blocked.
On the same day, Reuters, citing the head of the Istanbul Association of Exporters of Ferrous and Nonferrous Metals, Cetin Tejdelioglu, reported that Turkey had distributed among local companies a list of sanctioned goods that could not be delivered to Russia from March 1, regardless of the country of origin.
As Kommersant notes, this decision indicates the readiness of the Turkish authorities to meet the EU's needs and limit the transit of dual-use goods. On February 25, the European Union published the tenth package of sanctions, which includes a ban on the transit of dual-use goods and technologies through the territory of Russia. Thus, the bloc intends to stop the scheme of indirect re-export, which allows goods to be imported into the Russian Federation through the interruption of transit. In such cases, the goods are initially purchased by non-Russian companies, but in the process of transit they "settle" on the territory of the country.
According to Vlastopulo, while Turkey does not block dual-use goods, restrictions have been introduced only by the EU - the block does not release them for transit through Russia and Belarus. However, according to AKFA commercial director Alexei Chernyshev, Turkey has already taken its own steps. Since March 20, the Turkish airport has refused to accept processing goods of 84 and 85 TNVED groups going to Russia (“Nuclear Reactors, Boilers, Equipment, and Mechanical Devices”, “Electrical Machines and Equipment”) going to Russia.
Giorgi Vlastopulo doubts that the former scheme of free transit will be restored by Turkey. He names the two most likely scenarios for the development of events - either the country will close the transit of dual-use goods or those produced in the USA, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan, or the transit will be completely closed.
Turkey suddenly stopped the transit of sanctioned goods going to Russia through parallel imports on March 9 - the customs system began to block their clearance. On March 13, the transit of goods resumed, but there were no comments on the change in its nature.
Source: https://lenta.ru/news/2023/03/21/trans/