Turkey bows to US pressure, cuts Russian bank ties
GBNEWS24DESK//
Turkey’s booming wartime trade with Moscow took a giant step back yesterday with confirmation that the last three banks still processing Russian card payments were pulling out under pressure from Washington.
The decision follows weeks of increasingly blunt warnings from the United States for Nato member Turkey to either limit its economic relations with Russia or face the threat of sanctions itself.
The US Treasury said last week that Turkish banks working with Russian Mir bank cards “risk supporting Russia’s efforts to evade US sanctions”.
The three Turkish state lenders that halted transactions are Halkbank, Vakifbank and Ziraatbank.
The Kremlin condemned Washington for forcing Turkish banks to cut their Russian ties.
The explosion of Turkish trade with Russia during the seven-month war in Ukraine has been a source of growing irritation for Washington.
The value of trade between the two rose by more than 50 percent. Turkey has also agreed to pay for a quarter of its Russian natural gas imports in rubles.
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