Turkish city counts cost of Syrian violence #Syria
GAZIANTEP, Turkey | (Reuters) - Worry etched across their grizzled faces, truck drivers line up their vehicles at Turkey’s Oncupinar border gate, ready to run the gauntlet on a road they dread taking: south into Syria. Since Turkey late last year took the side of anti-government demonstrators seeking the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad, truckers plying the route between the border and the Syrian city of Aleppo have made an easy target for Assad loyalists. Banking on safety in numbers, the truckers try to travel in convoys. “They prefer to enter Syria together because their vehicles have been shot at and stoned,” said Zafer Aydinguler, head of a haulage association in Gaziantep, a city in southeast Turkey 100 km (60 miles) north of Aleppo. The United Nations estimates that some 5,000 people have been killed in the violence in Syria; the Syrian authorities say 2,000 police and soldiers have died fighting foreign-backed “terrorists.” Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has demanded the resignation of his one-time friend Assad and in November ordered economic sanctions, which aim at Assad’s government while trying to spare Syrian people more hardship. These include freezing state assets, banning entry by senior officials and suspending financial dealings. Although Turkey still trades with Syria, it is seeking alternative transport routes to export goods to other countries in the Middle East, which it estimates will cost Syria over $100 million in transport fees annually. The Syrian government retaliated by imposing a 30 percent trade tariff, and this month it cleared out its consulate in Gaziantep, historically one of the gateways from Anatolia to the Middle East. Gaziantep, the sixth largest city in Turkey with a population of more than 1 million and industries ranging from food and textiles to chemicals, has been hit hard by the deterioration of economic ties with Syria. While the city’s exports to Syria were previously only around $150 million, they have fallen by close to one-third since the Syrian unrest began, and the cost to Gaziantep is magnified by the loss of visitors from Syria. Some 60,000 Syrians used to cross the border monthly, providing a contribution of around $1 billion a year to Gaziantep and the economy of the border region.
Source: reuters.com
