The closure is estimated to have caused a daily loss of around TL 150,000 for the province, affecting everyone from truck drivers and transportation companies to local breadwinners who were making a living through border trade. Between 1,500 and 2,000 Turkish trucks and private cars were using the gate for exports or border trade every day. When families are included, the number of people whose transportation has been affected rises to more than 10,000.
Mehmet Akıllı, responsible for foreign trade in the Akıllı Construction and Export company in Şanlıurfa, has noted that the province, being devoid of any industry except for one cement plant, is mostly dependent on agriculture and transportation. “For Şanlıurfa, the closure of the Akçakale border gate is something like the closure of the Habur border gate for Turkey during the Iraq crisis,” he said in his comments to Today's Zaman. Although he expresses support for the government's policy on Syria, he is very concerned about unemployment, saying: “The negative effects will start to be deeply felt next month. Unemployment will increase, people will migrate to big cities and trucks which were generally bought on credit will be under the threat of repossession.”
More than half of Şanlıurfa's nearly $200 million in exports went to Syria last year, making it a very important market for the border town. Exports to Syria have fallen to $68 million this year. With the suspension of the free trade agreement by Syria, exports have come to a standstill in December.
Every year Şanlıurfa received around 200,000 visitors from Syria, who were coming to visit relatives and religious sites, and also for border trade. Syrians sold tea and cigarettes to Turkish retailers and bought items such as blankets, clothing and saucepans -- some items were for personal use and some were for selling back home. Sabri Ertekin, president of the Şanlıurfa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, thinks trade in Şanlıurfa will not be greatly affected in 2012. “Business at the local markets will only decrease by around 10 percent, and the total negative influence will be no more than 15 percent,” he said.
But Ertekin has misgivings about Turkey's position on the Syrian issue, commenting: “We understand that, for humanitarian reasons, Turkey feels the need to act, but we don't need to act like Don Quixote fighting with windmills. Instead, we should urge the world to do the same as Turkey; an embargo solely implemented by Turkey will not solve the problem. In fact, the countries not implementing any sanctions might benefit from the situation economically.”
Akçakale, which has a population of nearly 30,000, is most dramatically affected by the closure of the gate. There are 5,600 members in the Akçakale Tradesmen and Artisans Confederation. “Nearly 3,000 of our members earn much of their money through border trade with Syria. For us, it has been as if the Euphrates stopped flowing.” Mehmet Kartal, president of the confederation, told Today's Zaman.
In Akçakale and its surrounding towns, there are thousands of people who do not own land from which to make a living. So when the border gate is closed, they are completely jobless. “They earn their living by making daily visits to Syria to sell their goods from Turkey, from electric heaters to blankets. When they return, they resell tea and sugar to Turkish retailers,” Kartal explained.
The crisis seems to have hit truck owners doubly hard. In 2011 people from Akçakale and Harran, another town near the border, bought nearly 2,000 trucks, each worth nearly $250,000, notes Kartal. The truck owners have to pay in installments because they bought the trucks on credit. If the gate remains closed, it will become more and more difficult to make these payments. The importance of border trade for Akçakale cannot be understated. “Nearly 1,000 Syrians used to come for shopping every day. They would spend roughly TL 200,000 in Akçakale,” said Kartal.
The truck owners in the region also suffer from arbitrary decisions from Syria. After Syria closed the border, 183 Turkish trucks were stuck in the customs area. Syrian officials finally allowed 58 of them to proceed into Syria and the rest returned to Turkey on Tuesday after having been kept at the customs area at the Akçakale border gate for about 10 days.
Talking to Today's Zaman in front of the border gate, Abdülkadir Yıldız, a representative from the Halefoğlu firm, which owns some of the trucks held at the border, was finally able to relax, but he was still a little worried that all the trucks loaded with cement might have been harmed during their rainy, 10-day wait in the customs area.
source: Todayszaman- AYDIN ALBAYRAK, ŞANLIURFA
