THE RUSSIAN-owned ship allowed to leave Limassol harbour carrying “dangerous cargo” on the condition it would sail to Turkey ended up in Syria yesterday, its original destination, according to Turkish media reports.
Turkish media reported that the Chariot cargo ship arrived at Tarsus port in Syria at 11am yesterday after leaving the Limassol harbour area at around midday on Wednesday, supposedly for Iskenderun port in Turkey.
The ship, owned by the Russian-based shipping company Westberg Ltd, left St Petersburg on December 9, 2011, sailing for Latakia port in Syria.
Due to rough seas, the Chariot anchored off Limassol harbor on Tuesday for refueling. Following external checks by the Cypriot authorities on four containers and an electric generator on board, inspectors concluded that the ship carried “dangerous cargo with destination to Syria and Turkey”.
However, actual examination of the content of the containers was not possible “due to the narrow confines of the ship”. Local press reported that the ship was carrying between 35 and 60 tonnes of munitions for Syria, which the EU has implemented an arms embargo on.
The authorities refused to allow the ship to refuel or depart until they received assurances from the ship’s owners that it would change its destination and sail to Iskenderun port instead.
With the memory of the Mari explosion still fresh, the authorities were keen to exploit two main factors in their interpretation of EU rules on the embargo: first, the ship did not originate from Cyprus but was passing through due to bad weather, and second, its purported destination was no longer Syria, but Turkey.
A written statement by the foreign ministry said the government followed the letter of the law and that the relevant EU restrictions were not being violated by letting the ship depart.
A few hours after the ship left Limassol, sailing east around the island, the ship’s tracking devise was no longer operational, making it impossible to track or confirm its location on shipping websites.
Turkish papers, Today’s Zaman and Hurriyet Daily News, quoted a Turkish foreign ministry official saying that the Chariot had not stopped in Turkey, but docked in Syria instead, at Tartus port south of Latakia.
Sources told Turkish journalists that had the ship sailed to Turkey, Turkish authorities would not have permitted it to dock, despite the country implementing its own form of embargoes on the Syrian regime, due to the fact that it stopped over at a Cypriot port.
Opposition DISY vice-president Ionas Nicolaou yesterday repeated earlier criticism of the government’s “amateurish” handling of the incident.
“Unfortunately, once again, the government proved powerless to decide on the basis of our obligations towards the EU thus creating the impression that other considerations were paramount.
“The EU Council decisions expressly prohibit transport of the cargo to Syria. The alleged assurances of the ship owners to change destination besides being proved false, do not absolve us of the obligation to confiscate the cargo since its destination was Syria,” he argued.
Director of the President’s Office Christos Christofides defended the government’s handling saying that the authorities put the public interest at the heart of their decisions to reach a positive conclusion.
“I have not seen anyone in the EU complain other than the Democratic Rally (DISY) party,” said Christofides.
