ArmInfo.Turkey suddenly stopped the transit of sanctioned goods to Russia. The customs system blocks the transit clearance of goods of non-Turkish origin. Such a move came as a surprise to the market, its participants, who are urgently looking for alternative routes, told Kommersant FM. According to them, exactly those goods, which go to Russia through parallel import, were blocked.
<Some interlocutors of Kommersant FM associate the suspension of the transit of sanctioned goods with the recent visit of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Turkey. The United Arab Emirates is also under pressure, writes the Financial Times. They became a center for supplying Russia with electronics>, Kommersant writes.
Days earlier, the United States Government called on companies to commit to comply with sanctions against Russia, "introduced after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine." The U.S. warns that failure to do so could lead to possible prosecution or enforcement action, Reuters reports. A joint notice from the Departments of Justice, Commerce and the Treasury states that attempts to circumvent Russia-related sanctions and export controls continue, including through third parties. The guide refers to countries such as China, Armenia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan that have been used as "transit points" for "illicit diversion of prohibited goods to Russia or Belarus". On March 2, in Berlin, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, assured that Armenia was not helping Russia bypass Western sanctions. The United States, Europe and other partners, seeking to inflict economic harm on Moscow, have imposed a slew of sanctions on a number of individuals and entities since Russian troops invaded Ukraine a year ago.