The Turkish financial system is at risk – Former U.S. Treasury adviser

On September the 23th, lawyers of four children living in the United States filed a lawsuit in New York courts against The Kuwaiti-Turkish Bank, the largest joint-venture bank in Turkey, on charges of financing operations and terrorist attacks which killed the children’s parents, a man and woman in the West Bank city of Nablus.

This is the second lawsuit filed against the largest foreign bank in Turkey, after another case took place accusing the bank of financing the operations of the Islamic State group (ISIS).

This incident came days after the U.S. Department of Treasury had imposed sanctions on 11 entities and individuals related to Turkey, for their support of “Hamas” and other terrorist groups, where the “New York Post” wrote on Tuesday, “Turkey has become a haven for regional terrorism”.

Jonathan Schanzer, the former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and senior vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told North-Press on the issue that the frequency of this type of funding for both ISIS and Hamas terrorists by banks in Turkey, is the start point of deterioration of the Turkish financial system and the exposure to risks.

Schanzer revealed to North-Press the consequences of the case filed against “The Kuwaiti-Turkish Bank”, which will cause a crisis of confidence in the Turkish financial centers, and will force the bank to pay compensations for the victim children of Hamas group.

Schanzer believes that although the depositors of The Kuwaiti-Turkish Bank were not subjected to the freezing of their funds and assets in the bank, yet, the cases brought against the bank before the Court of Terrorism in New York would accelerate the process of withdrawing money quickly by depositors leading to the collapse of bank’s assets very quickly.

North-Press obtained a copy of the lawsuit filed by Stein Mitchell and four other U.S. companies, (Missner LLP, Osen LLC, and MM Law LLC) against The Kuwaiti-Turkish Bank “Kuveyt Türk”, in the Eastern District Court of the City of New York for its assistance and support of terrorist activities of  Hamas, which led to the killing of two U.S. citizens, the civilian couple “Eitam and Naama Henkin”.

Moreover, the bank financed the acts of terrorists, who carried out “assassinations and terrorist attacks”, while the bank has close links with the government, where it contributes to a number of activities of the Turkish government abroad to expand Turkish influence through “charity and educational and activities”. According to the lawsuit filed by the U.S. companies against The Kuwaiti-Turkish Bank.

The aforementioned U.S. companies have succeeded in bringing The Kuwaiti-Turkish Bank to face justice in New York court, where they pledged to imprison the bank’s associates on the American soil, and to prevent all those who are abroad and connected to it of conducting any commercial transactions with the U.S. banks or the related companies, in addition to preventing them from entering the United States and forcing the bank to pay compensation to the families of the victims of Hamas’s “terrorist” operations.