Turkey's Erdogan Vows to Punish Journalist behind Syria Trucks Video
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed to punish the editor of a newspaper which published video footage it said showed the MIT state intelligence agency helping send weapons to Syria.
The Cumhuriyet newspaper published footage on its website on Friday which it said showed gendarmerie and police officers opening crates of what it described as weapons and ammunition on the back of three trucks belonging to MIT.
"The individual who has reported this as an exclusive story will pay a high price for this," Erdogan said in a television interview with state broadcaster TRT late on Sunday.
"I will not let this go."
Reuters reported on May 21 that witnesses and prosecutors have alleged that MIT helped deliver arms to parts of Syria under Islamist rebel control during late 2013 and early 2014, quoting a prosecutor and court testimony from gendarmerie officers.
Cumhuriyet said the video was from Jan. 19, 2014 but did not say how it had obtained the footage, Reuters reported.
Erdogan has said the trucks stopped that day belonged to MIT and were carrying aid to Turkmens in Syria. He has said prosecutors had no authority to search MIT vehicles and were part of what he calls a "parallel state" run by his ally-turned-foe Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Islamic cleric whom Erdogan says is bent on discrediting him and the government.