Turkey vs Slovakia: who botched the ‘drugs ring’ operation?

Blame for the recent embarrassing case of Slovak police who planted and tracked a precursor for making heroin on a truck bound for Turkey is being passed from side to side, and is starting to take on a political dimension.

Slovak interior minister Daniel Lipsic blames the Turkish authorities for the blunder, which saw a poor unsuspecting Czech truck driver spend Christmas in a Turkish cell. The Turks are claiming that the operation, which was supposed to catch a large European drugs ring, failed because of incompetence of the Slovak side.

Lipsic said that a clear agreement had been made between the Slovak authorities, the Eurojust organisation, and other countries, including Turkey, but that the Turks had broken the agreement.

The Turkish Embassy released an official statement pointing the finger at the Slovak authorities, claiming that the Slovak security forces had not satisfied the requirements and standards that the Turkish authorities were used to.

Lisic pointed out, however, that it does not specify in any detail what grounds the Turks had to thwart the international police operation.  “It’s formulated in a general way without any specific objection”, he said.

Now interior minister Lipsic will call for the one-year ban on the Czech driver to be lifted, because he says it is unfair, considering the fact that it was the Turkish authorities that had broken the agreement. the freight forwarding company in question is demanding compensation, but this will depend on negotiations with the Turkish authorities said Lipsic.

The initial reaction of Lipsic was that with this incident Turkey has shown to be still unfit to join the European Union, which the Turkish Embassy retaliated about. Lipsic justified his comments by saying he was expressing his opinion.