On January 5, 2023, the U.S. and Turkish governments targeted four individuals and two entities determined to be associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”) financial facilitation network. , jointly imposed sanctions. See here for US actions and here for Turkey actions.
The designation targets the Islamic State group’s head of foreign finance, Abd al-Hamid Salim Ibrahim Ismail Burkhan al-Hatuni, and his network coordinated by his sons. . The US Treasury Department press release explained that the network played a key role in his ISIS fund management, remittance and distribution in the region.
The sanctions were imposed by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the Turkish Ministry of Finance, and the Turkish Ministry of Interior. OFAC will add these parties to a list of specially designated nationals or blocked persons (the “SDN List”) and will keep these parties essentially out of transactions related to the U.S. financial system and the U.S. nexus. detached. Türkiye’s Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Interior implemented an asset freeze against the targeted officials.
This development demonstrates a growing level of engagement and international coordination on sanctions policy, including in countries such as Turkey, which traditionally do not use sanctions as a policy tool on a daily basis as some do. .The authors would like to thank Ryan Orange for assistance in preparing this blog post.