President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has commented on the cases into Iranian-Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab and the deputy general manager of Halkbank, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, saying steps will be taken regarding the issue.
“In my visit to the United States in May, President [Donald] Trump and I will evaluate the issues of Syria, Iraq, the struggle against terrorism and bilateral relations. One of the steps that we are going to take will be on Reza Zarrab,” Erdoğan told Reuters in an interview on April 25.
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Mukasey, a former U.S. attorney general, hired to resolve criminal charges against Iranian - Turkish tycoon Reza Zarrab. Both of the lawyers, who have been advisers to US President Trump, were hired by Zarrab also to seek a resolution to the case beyond the courtroom.
Giuliani travelled overseas recently to see Erdoğan, the meeting was kept secret.
“I’m looking at him as a citizen and not as a relative. If there is a crime, then his file can be conveyed to the Justice Ministry. Otherwise, if he is arrested after some things are made up, then we will be seen as a country that doesn’t protect its citizens,” he also said.
Giuliani had said in an affidavit that senior U.S. officials are open to a deal that would help his client while promoting the security interests of the United States.
Zarrab, 33, who was born in Iran and moved to Turkey, has dual citizenship. He was charged with conspiring to facilitate millions of dollars in transactions on behalf of Iran and other sanctioned entities through the use of false documents and front companies, and with conspiracies to commit bank fraud and to commit money laundering.
Reza Zarrab, also known by the name Rıza Sarraf, was arrested in Turkey, in 2013 of bribing senior ministers from Erdoğan's ruling party with cash and lavish gifts as part of a scheme to bypass US sanctions on Iran. In 2014, Erdoğan dismissed investigators involved in the case, and charges against Zarrab and members of Erdoğan’s government were eventually dismissed. He was arrested in Miami after arriving in the U.S. for a family trip. The arrest threatens to reopen a case that reached right into Erdoğan’s inner circle and to tarnish the party that he founded.
“This game needs to be spoiled. There are lawyers who have been hired by Halkbank. There are those that want to get us involved as the state. We will have meetings with the president on that issue,” Erdoğan also said.
In a related case, US prosecutors last month charged Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a senior manager at Türkiye Halk Bankası A.Ş., a large state-owned bank, with conspiring with Zarrab. Prosecutors cited recorded conversations between Atilla and Zarrab in 2013 which suggested that the two were intentionally trying to disguise transactions involving a Dubai company in such a way that Western banks would approve funding.
