Ship suspected of arms smuggling to Syria docks in Turkish port

ISKENDERUN, Turkey (Reuters) – A Germanowned ship suspected of carrying weapons and ammunition heading to Syria was being towed into Turkey’s Mediterranean Iskenderun port for inspection on Wednesday, officials said.

The Atlantic Cruiser is already being investigated by Germany after Der Spiegel news magazine reported the ship was carrying Iranian weapons to Syria in breach of an arms embargo.

Turkish Foreign Ministry and port officials said the ship was being towed into the port, which is located on Turkey’s eastern Mediterranean coast just over 100 km. north of Syria, on suspicion it was carrying weapons.

The officials could not confirm if there were weapons aboard but said they were planning to inspect all the ship’s cargo once it had been offloaded. The ship had been due to offload some of its cargo in Turkey as part of its route, they said.

A Reuters reporter in Iskenderun said he could see Turkish police from the customs and smuggling department on board the ship. Port officials said they had already inspected parts of the ship and would allow photographers aboard once the ship was docked.

German shipping company W. Bockstiegel, which owns the Atlantic Cruiser, ordered the vessel on Monday to turn its transponder back on after the ship switched off the tracking system because its crew feared attack.

The company has said it has no information about any weapons on board the ship, which was originally destined for Syria.

White Whale Shipping, the Ukrainian company that chartered the Atlantic Cruiser has denied there were arms on board and said its cargo was civilian goods. Sending weapons to Syria would be in violation of a European Union arms embargo.

According to Marinetraffic.com, a website that tracks global ship movements, the Atlantic Cruiser was just off the coast of Iskenderun on Wednesday morning and was sailing under an Antigua Barbuda flag. Earlier, Turkish Dogan news agency said it was flying a Bermudan flag.

Der Spiegel reported the ship had loaded its cargo in Djibouti last week and changed course for Iskenderun in Turkey on Friday when the cargo was at risk of being uncovered.

The ship stopped about 80 km. southwest of the Syrian port of Tartus, its initial destination, it said.

The magazine quoted ship broker Torsten Lueddeke of Hamburg-based C.E.G. Bulk Chartering as saying: “We stopped the ship after we received information on the weapons cargo.”

White Whale Shipping had declared the cargo as “pumps and the like,” the magazine reported.

W. Bockstiegel said goods were loaded on the ship in Mumbai, India, and it was destined for Syria, Turkey and Montenegro. A portion of the goods were unloaded at Djibouti and no new goods were taken on board there, it said.

Its crew members inspected the top of the cargo that it could open and found only cable drums and tubes.

The German government has said there are still unanswered questions about the ship’s cargo.

Western sanctions imposed on the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad include an arms embargo and a ban on importing Syrian oil into the EU.

During a UN Security Council briefing last month, the US and Britain accused Iran of shipping weapons to Syria they said were being used against the Syrian people.

American and European security officials have also said Iran is providing a broad array of assistance to Assad to help suppress anti-government protests, including high-tech surveillance technology.

Iran and Syria have denied charges of arms trade and last month, Damascus told the UN that armed “terrorist groups” in Syria were receiving weapons from supporters in Lebanon and other states along the Syrian border.