Turkey denies jet fuel trade with Israel

Turkey is not selling jet fuel to Israel, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Monday.

Yildiz’s remarks came in response to some Turkish media reports which claimed Turkey was providing jet fuel for Israeli aircraft bombarding Gaza.

“Turkey has sold jet fuel to Israel neither this month nor in the previous month,” he told reporters in Ankara.

The leftist daily Aydinlik claimed Thursday that the fuel used by Israeli war planes was sent to Israel from the ports of Mersin and Dortyol on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

Regarding Iraqi Kurdish officials’ visit to Ankara on Monday, Yildiz said they would discuss the issue of revenues generated from the sales of the oil from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq.

Yildiz said 5 percent of the oil revenues belonging to Iraq was allocated for Kuwait as part of the Gulf War reparations.

“After the transportation costs, 17 percent of the oil revenues belongs to the Kurdish Regional Government and 83 percent of it belongs to Iraq’s central government in Baghdad,” he said.

Yildiz previously announced that income from the pipeline that carries Kurdish oil to Turkey would continue to be invested in a Turkish bank as long as the Kurdish administration continued to supply the oil.

Approximately $100 million revenue from oil passing through Turkey via pipelines is saved in Turkey’s Halkbank.

News report syndicated from Anadolu Agency.