Greek ships are transporting Azerbaijani crude oil to Israel from a Turkish port, thereby violating the embargo that Ankara has supposedly imposed on trade with Israel. With the knowledge of the Turkish authorities, if we are to believe a report by El País.
In brief, the system works as follows: Greek—primarily—ships pick up Azerbaijani crude from the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, where the BTC pipeline terminal is located, which transports oil from the Caspian Sea.
They declare a non-Israeli—usually Egyptian—port as the cargo’s destination. Along the way, they turn off the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which allows the ship to be tracked. However, instead of unloading at an Egyptian port, they usually unload at Ashkelon in Israel, which has 24 crude oil storage tanks. These tanks are connected via pipelines to the refineries in Ashdod, Eilat, and Haifa.
All of this is taking place amid a supposed total embargo on trade with Israel, which the Erdogan government declared in May 2024 under popular pressure.
Crude oil imports from Azerbaijan account for 46% of Israel’s total crude oil imports. Russia ranks second with 28%. It is estimated that from the time the Turkish embargo was declared until last March, 58 million barrels of crude oil were shipped from the Ceyhan terminal to Israel.
According to the El País report, Greek shipping companiesMinerva, Thenamaris, and Kyklades play a leading role in this transport of crude oil from Turkey to Israel. Thenamaris is owned by the Martinos family, which currently operates the largest merchant fleet in Greece. The Cyclades company is owned by the Alafouzos family, which “controls a major media group close to the Greek conservative government,” the newspaper writes . These two companies have been responsible for 85% of Azerbaijan’s crude oil shipments from Turkey to Israel since the Turkish embargo was imposed until today.
Both the Greek shipping companies and the Turkish authorities deny any wrongdoing. When asked by the Spanish newspaper, the companies stated that they do not comment on “commercial operations” that are fully in line with international law and existing sanctions.
For their part, Turkish authorities maintain that allegations regarding the existence of an oil supply corridor from Turkey to Israel are “completely false.”
However, as a Palestinian activist told the Spanish newspaper: “While Israel intensifies its attacks across the region, committing massacres in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, the shipments of crude oil fueling these war crimes continue to flow from Turkey to Israel.”