Egypt to Inspect Security at Ataturk Airport – Turkish Airlines Implicated in Arms Trafficking

April 19th, 2016

Awake Goy

Christof Lehmann (nsnbc) : Egyptian experts will inspect security at Istanbul Ataturk Airport in May as a measure of “reciprocity” with regard to Turkish inspections of security at Egyptian airports subsequent to the crash of the Russian Kogalmavia jet last year. It is noteworthy that Turkish Airlines and Turkey’s intelligence service MIT have been implicated in the smuggling of weapons to Nigeria.

Turkish Airlines contacted Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh Airport to approve the dispatching of a delegation to inspect security procedures there, reports The Cairo Post. Turkey asks for the inspections as precondition for resuming flights to Egypt’s Red Sea resort. Turkey, and a number of other countries and carriers suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh and other Egyptian airports after the crash of the Russian Kogalmavia (Metrojet) Flight KGL9268 on October 31, 2015.

Russian authorities have claimed that the Kogalmavia Airlines (Metrojet) Airbus 321 on Flight KGL9268 crashed due to the explosion of a bomb on board. Egyptian authorities have thus far not officially stated whether or not the jet was brought down by a bomb. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi has, however, stated that “it was likely”. The Egyptian investigators have recently transferred the case to Egypt’s criminal prosecutors. Egypt has implemented a number of improvements with regard to security at its airports.

Reciprocity?

Egyptian statements about inspections of security at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport based on “reciprocity” is an interesting use of semantics. Egyptian – Turkish relations have been tense since the fall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood linked president Mohamed Morsi. Egypt has, among others, accused the Turkish government of supporting Muslim Brotherhood – linked media as well as armed insurgents in Egypt.

Egyptian intelligence and security services must, moreover, be cognizant of the fact that Turkish Airlines and Turkey’s intelligence service MIT have been implicated in the trafficking of weapons to terrorists in Nigeria. In 2014 a clandestinely recorded phone conversation revealed that a Turkish Airlines official and an adviser to the then Prime Minister, now President R. Tayyip Erdogan were implicated in using the flag carrier to transport weapons to insurgents in Nigeria. The recording was of a conversation (allegedly) between Mustafa Varank, the chief advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, and Turkish Airlines (THY) Executive Assistant Mehmet Karakaş. nsnbc has had the recording analyzed by a professional audio and voice recognition expert who noted that the recording appears to be genuine.

Karakaş was asking bluntly whether the weapons are “going to kill Muslims or Christians…,” and references were made to Turkish intelligence service MİT Chief Hakan Bey. (See video above). The leaked recording prompts the question whether or not Egyptian authorities should enforce special security checks of Turkish Airlines flights, passengers and cargo. Reciprocal security inspections at the Ataturk Airport by Egyptian experts may, indeed be a good and justified measure and more than an interesting use of the word “reciprocity”.

CH/L – nsnbc 18.04.2016