Erdogan’s regime loots Syria’s cereal crops in al-Jazira region: Turkish newspaper

ANKARA, (ST)- The Turkish Zaman newspaper has documented the Turkish regime’s looting of Syria’s cereal crop in the areas it occupied in the Syrian al-Jazira region.

The newspaper confirms what local sources had already revealed to the Syrian News Agency (SANA).

Yesterday, SANA published a report quoting local sources in the countryside of Hasaka and Raqqa that the Turkish regime, through the Turkish Cereal Establishment, forced farmers in the areas under their occupation to sell their cereal crops exclusively to Turkish authorities.

Zaman said that with the start of the wheat harvest season, the Akcakale border gate in Sanliurfa city in southeast of Turkey continuously witnesses the crossing of Turkish trucks loaded with cereals coming from al-Jazira region in the northeastern part of Syria in an open theft of Syrian agricultural crops in the areas occupied by the Turkish regime forces.

The newspaper also quoted a truck driver called “Saleh Jundogdu” as saying that he transfers barley and wheat from the Syrian city of Tal Abyad to the Turkish territories where authorities unload the shipment in the stores of the Turkish agricultural crops office in the city of Sanliurfa.

 The driver affirmed that the process of transferring Syrian crops to Turkey has been resumed after a short period of stopping because of the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

The Syrian al-Jazira region has been witnessing intentionally-set fires that devoured hundreds of hectares of wheat and barley fields. Most of the fires were set intentionally by the Turkish regime’s terrorist mercenaries to deprive the Syrian people of their living sources and force them to cooperate with them in order to inflict more damage upon the Syrian economy which is under an unfair blockade imposed by western countries and the United States on Syria.

Hamda Mustafa