The accusations regarding SOCAR Türkiye's (a subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic - SOCAR), sales of crude oil to Israel do not reflect the truth, Report informs, citing SOCAR Türkiye.
SOCAR Türkiye emphasized that this is deliberately intended to confuse public opinion:
"We carry out all our activity within the framework of international business agreements following the vision set by our head office - SOCAR. The global oil market has its characteristics and the crude oil produced is sold through trade or trading companies. Supply companies do not have the ability to control and intervene in which countries crude oil is transported to, for which purposes it is used."
In this regard, SOCAR, akin to other entities in the oil industry, conducts the sale of its products through established commercial relations with pertinent trading firms. However, given the breadth of our continuous commercial engagements with trading entities in the international market, we lack the capacity to monitor or influence the destinations to which these traders transport SOCAR’s crude oil or the purposes for which it is utilized.”
The company also noted that as a result of the geopolitical processes taking place in the region in recent times, SOCAR Türkiye and group companies have been targeted by some subversive groups both through social media and physical actions:
"These subversive groups make baseless accusations that our company has a crude oil trade with Israel, make provocative posts on social media, and carry out physical attacks on our company premises in a way that puts the safety of our employees at risk.
The continuation of the increasingly violent provocations in our central building in Istanbul on March 12, May 29, May 31, and June 2, and in the Bursagaz office building in Bursa on May 24, poses a threat to the lives of our employees.
As SOCAR Türkiye, our investments and cooperation are carried out in accordance with the strong ties of brotherhood and friendship between Türkiye and Azerbaijan, as well as strategic alliance and mutual interests of our peoples.
During the 16 years, we have been operating in Türkiye, with an investment of approximately $18.3 billion, with 5,600 direct and more than 10,000 indirect employees in various cities. We are the largest foreign investor and the largest integrated industrial group in the country," the company added.