A ship suspected of carrying weapons headed for Syria has docked at a Turkish port. The Turkish authorities are expected to carry out a detailed search of the vessel, which was named by the Dogan news agency as the Atlantic Cruiser. This follows an incident last year in which Turkey seized a huge weapons cache from an Iranian cargo plane bound for Aleppo in Syria. The plane, owned by Iran's YasAir Cargo Airline, was supposed to be carrying car parts. It was asked to make a "technical stop" at Diyarbakir where the weapons were found. In a separate incident a truck was found to be carrying military grade explosives also heading for Aleppo. The Atlantic Cruiser appeared to be destined for Tartus in Syria when it received a UN warning to change course and headed for the port at Iskenderun. It was sailing under the colours of Bermuda and may be the same ship as the one Der Spiegel Online reported on Monday was a German-owned vessel of the same name, belonging to the shipping comp! any W. Bockstiegel. Der Spiegal reported that the ship had loaded its cargo in Djibouti, but W. Bockstiegel said the cargo was loaded in Mumbai and that nothing was taken on board in Djibouti. The company that chartered the Atlantic Cruiser - White Whale Shipping in Ukraine - denied there were arms on board. The crew had apparently inspected the top of the cargo and found only cable drums and tubes. If any weapons are found they would be in violation of a European Union arms embargo - as was the arms ...
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