Not of the E.U. in Turkey for Operation “Peace”
Turkey has rejected eight times requests by Operation Peace to inspect Turkish-flagged ships, including that of the Matilde A last Monday, Foreign Affairs Committee spokesman Peter Stano said today.
“We regret Turkey’s refusal to Irini’s request to inspect the merchant ship Matilde A. Operation Irini is acting under UN Security Council resolution 2292 on the arms trade in Libya. All UN members have been called upon by the UN Security Council to cooperate in these inspections,” Mr. Stano stressed.
The representative of the Commission further pointed out that “the fact that “Irini” could not carry out these checks does not prove at this stage a violation of the embargo, but it shows a lack of cooperation in its verification”.
The refusals were not reasoned, Mr. Stano added, adding that “friendly approaches or requests for inspections do not prejudge the nature of the activities of the vessels being examined or inspected.”
“Operation “Peace” closely monitors suspicious vessels, regardless of origin, and conducts inspections in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council. We continue to report all these cases and all our activities to the UN Sanctions Committee”, concludes the Commission representative in his statement.
Source: RES