Thread by @abdbozkurt

1) The US appears to have decided to play a hard ball with #Turkey's Erdogan who has been dragging his feet in parliamentary approval of #Sweden and #Finland's NATO membership bids. Sanctioning Erdogan's close business associate Sitki Ayan is a powerful message.

2) The US and its key allies have reached to a conclusion that Erdogan has been using #Sweden and #Finlands as punching bags to send a message and is not really interested in the outcome of negotiations with Nordic states.

3) Biden administration punched back yesterday by designating Ayan who has been laundering IRGC funds for Iran using Turkey as a base with political cover from Erdogan who has been enriching himself with kickbacks/bribes in helping Iran to move funds.

4) Ayan has been identified as one of key operatives of Iran in two criminal investigations in Turkey. One was Dec.2013 graft probes which showed him paying bribes to Erdogan to clear the path for IRGC projects in Turkey. Iranian sanction buster Reza Zarrab was the main suspect.

5) The other was the 2011-2014 counterterrorism probe into Quds Force Turkish network Tevhid Selam which showed Ayan conspiring with IRGC general, sanctioned by the US, in running clandestine ops in Turkey.

6) Erdogan hushed up both probes by dismissing police chiefs, prosecutors, and judges who were involved in investigating these crimes involving Quds Force suspects. He branded judicial probes as coup and blamed Gulenists.

7) But US authorities moved with their own probes, launched a federal case against Erdogan's associates, indicted several Turkish officials and convicted a senior state lender Halkbank executive at the end of a trial. A separate case against the bank is still pending.

8) There is now a possibility of launching a new case against Erdogan and his associates in connection with Quds Force probe and Ayan's dealings would be a key in exposing how Erdogan secretly financed Iran's state terrorism by helping IRGC to move funds all over.