House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has fast-tracked a sanctions bill for Turkey that would require a detailed accounting of President Erdogan's net worth.
WASHINGTON – In a remarkable rebuke of a NATO ally, the House on Tuesday approved a biting sanctions bill that could cripple Turkey's economy and would punish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally by requiring an assessment of his net worth amid questions inside Turkey about his finances.
Lawmakers in both parties barreled ahead with the two measures to make Erdogan pay for Turkey's assault on U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in Syria even though the fighting has now mostly stopped. Members of Congress say Erdogan's attack unleashed violence and chaos that continues to reverberate across the region.
"The carnage that we have seen over the past week against our Kurdish partners and innocent civilians has been unbearable. There must be consequences," Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in unveiling the sanctions bill. He and the committee's chairman, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., are the chief sponsors. Trump imposed limited sanctions on Turkey on Oct.
Erdogan: From 'broke' to 'well-off'Both the House and Senate bills would require the State Department, along with U.S. Treasury and intelligence officials, to submit a report to Congress detailing the Erdogan family's assets, investments, business interests, and income. In 2017, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party said he had documents showing that members of Erdogan’s family, with the help of associates, had transferred at least $15 million to an offshore company in 2011 and 2012. As Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition leader, began addressing parliament regarding the alleged offshore accounts, the state-controlled broadcaster cut the transmission, according to a Voice of America account.
If Erdogan and his family's finances were to be exposed,"he would see this as a major threat," Erdemir said. "In Turkey, he has pretty much silenced all the media, and no one would dare to do such an expose. ... But if it’s coming from Congress, he would perceive this as very damaging." Last week, federal prosecutors in New York charged Halkbank with evading U.S. sanctions on Iran by moving billions of dollars in Iranian oil and gas proceeds back to Tehran and disguising some of the transactions as involving food, medicine and other humanitarian aid.
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