Aleppo-Sana
Media reports and local sources revealed that the Turkish regime and its mercenaries from the terrorist organizations had seized the olive harvest in the Afrin region and the surrounding areas in the northern countryside of Aleppo and stole olive oil and exported it to American markets after it was transferred to Turkey and prepared for export by Turkish government companies.
According to a report published by the Turkish newspaper Zaman today, “representatives of a Turkish agricultural authority consisting of the so-called (Turkish Agricultural Credit Cooperatives) traveled to the United States to market 90 thousand tons of olive oil as a Turkish product to show that it was stolen from the olives of Afrin, Syria, which Turkey occupied before Two years ”.
Local sources indicated to the newspaper that terrorist groups supported by the Turkish occupation forces seized thousands of olive trees in the Afrin region after expelling their original owners from them or seizing by force of arms the crops that farmers collected from their trees by forcing them to send their crops to an olive press that they set before they were set. It seizes oil by force.
The sources pointed out that in 2018, the Turkish regime opened a border crossing adjacent to the Afrin region in order to transport the stolen olive oil from Syrian lands directly to Turkish territory.
In the same context, the representative of the opposition Republican People's Party in Turkey Onal Civikuz said that the terrorist organizations loyal to the Erdogan regime “steal olive trees from their owners in the Afrin region,” indicating that “the oil that is exported to the West via Turkey comes as a result of successive Turkish invasions of Syrian lands.” .
For his part, Hikmat Shenzhen, head of the Turkish Chamber of Commerce, admitted that the olives that are stolen from Syrian lands “enter Turkey to sell them to foreign markets only” and that the so-called “Turkish agricultural credit cooperatives” have been granted exceptional authority to import the stolen olive oil from the Syrian fields in the Afrin region.
As the head of the Syndicate of Olive Oil Exporters in the Aegean Region (Dawood Er) explained, "The decision to bring Syrian oil to Turkey was originally a political rather than an economic decision, but the product has become an important part of the olive oil sector in Turkey."
Last year, Swedish parliamentarian Bernard Gul confirmed that Turkey “plundered olive fields in the Syrian region of Afrin and sells its oil as a Turkish in the European Union,” while the United Nations confirmed in a report the same year that “Turkey is accused of committing war crimes and committing human rights violations. He turned a blind eye to the crimes of the pro-Syrian militias, ”and that the violations of the Turkish regime, documented by the international organization, include the looting of the Syrian olive crop.
The Turkish regime forces and its mercenaries from the terrorist groups invaded Afrin in March 2018 after violent bombing that destroyed the infrastructure and displaced tens of thousands of people from the city, which was looted by the terrorists and seized its private and public property.