A senior member of the AK Party government of Turkey received a $65 mln bribes from Qatari intelligence
According to Sweden-based monitoring site Nordic Monitor, a superior member of the AK Party government of Turkey received a $65 mln bribe from Qatari intelligence to advance in a 2015 agreement that allowed the propagation of Turkish troops to Qatar.
A report from Nordic Monitor cited an intercepted 19-page intelligence document affirms that Ahmet Berat Conkar, the chief of the Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs commission at the period, communicated privately with a Qatari intelligence officer about the agreement.
In fact, and in 2015 Turkey accepted the founding of a military base in Qatar as part of a defense deal contracted in 2014 for helping it face common enemies, and at that time, Turkey reported that it would deploy 3,000 of its ground troops at the base.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt abandoned diplomatic and trade relations with Qatar because of the support of Doha to terrorism and published a list of 13 demands, including the closing down of the Turkish military installation.
The Nordic Monitor also reported that a superior AK Party official took $65 mln bribes from a Qatari intelligence officer during the testimony of Rear Adm. Sinan Sürer, who was responsible at that time for the external intelligence branch of the Turkish military.
The Nordic Monitor cited what Sürer said citing the intercepted intelligence document directly: According to the information obtained from a source, Berat Conkar communicated with a Qatari intelligence officer before the session [in the Foreign Affairs Committee] to push the law [that allowed the deployment of Turkish military units in Qatar] and received a $65 million bribes.
It should be noted that Conker worked as director of the Foreign Affairs Committee within the Turkish parliament between 2014 and 2016 and would continue as representative of Turkey to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, he also worked directly as a foreign policy adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
According to a Nordic Monitor report, the intelligence document has revealed in a hearing held on March 21, 2019, at the Ankara 17th High Criminal Court: In his testimony Adm. Sürer said the claim that Çonkar accepted a $65 million bribe was a very serious allegation. It [the intelligence] did not use ambiguous terms such as heard or reported. It said, according to the information obtained from a source.
Otherwise, the Sweden-based monitoring site declared that the intelligence document obtained was translated from a report made by what Turkish intelligence that believes to be a foreign agent who arranged it to investigate vulnerabilities in Turkey ahead of the 2015 elections.
Furthermore, the report also contained other findings of the relations of Erdogan with extremist groups like ISIS and his involvement in the oil trade with the terrorist group.