Trucks carrying Turkish exports blocked at Russian border: Association

DHA file photo

Around 1,250 trucks carrying Turkish exports have been blocked from entering Russia and are stranded at border posts awaiting clearance, a senior shipping industry representative told Reuters on Nov. 30.

Six days after NATO-member Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in the first known incident of its kind since the Cold War, calls for calm have gone largely unheeded. Ankara refuses to back down and Russia responds with sanctions.

"Russia has not given permission to Turkish trucks for entry or transit passage for the past four days," Fatih ?ener, managing director of Turkey's International Shippers Association (UND) said in an interview.

"Apart from the trucks waiting at the border posts, it doesn't allow those that have entered the country but waiting to discharge their load at the customs. This is the case for Romanian, Bulgarian, Kazakh and Moldovan trucks carrying Turkish goods," he said.

Both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu have repeatedly said Ankara had no intention to escalate the incident, but both reiterated that Turkey had the right to defend its borders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is waiting for an apology over the downing of an Su-24 warplane along the Turkish-Syrian border, and approved a round of economic sanctions against Ankara.

Trucks are stranded in Ukraine and Georgia for checks, which ?ener says now are more thorough than before and that the economic cost of the delay since last week is around $50,000 to $60,000. Furthermore, a total of 800 containers are also waiting for clearance in the Turkish Black Sea port of Samsun and at the Russian port of Novorossiysk.

Around 100 trucks awaiting transit passage at the Russian border...

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